Taxmen are making surprise visit to service-oriented organisations and shopping malls in an intensified hunt for VAT evaders to achieve government's tall revenue target for the current fiscal year (FY).
Field-level officials of Customs, Excise and Value Added Tax (VAT) Comissionerate, Dhaka south, one of the largest tax zones, had made their sudden appearance in 20 organisations between September 1 to October 26, 2015 when Tk 179 million worth of VAT evasions were detected.
Official sources said tax-evasion cases were filed against the companies during the initial drives, apparently prompted by revenue shortfalls by early count.
A team of the commissionerate recently inspected different shopping malls, supermarkets, sweetmeat shops, cinema halls, Chinese restaurants and coaching centres as a part of the drives, the sources said.
Apart from preventive move, the taxmen held several motivational and opinion- exchange meetings with Bangladesh Shop Owners Association, Mohanagar Shop Owners Association, Bangladesh Jewelry Samity and Nawabpur Electric Market Samity.
Meanwhile, the field-level VAT officials also conducted a survey and issued mandatory VAT-registration numbers to some 2,000 businesses.
The officials said Banshudhara shopping mall, Rapa Plaza, Bangla Motor Electric Market and New Market are under monitoring by the VAT team.
"Air-conditioned ladies' tailors at the New Market are also under surveillance.
At Nawabpur electric market, the VAT team found some 700 unregistered businesses," said a senior official of the zone.
The VAT officials identified four top potential areas for collecting revenue and meeting their tall target of tax-revenue collection, he said.
"VAT from trade-licence issuance, import-registration certificate, land registration and express mail service of the GPO remained unexplored. Officials eye a substantial amount of revenue from those sectors," he added.
Dhaka South VAT Commissionerate has pointed out those sectors which are subject to paying 15 per cent VAT.
Ismail Hossain Siraji, commissioner at the Dhaka South Commissionerate, said the team is working hard to get to the set target for the current FY, 2015-16.
"We are hopeful about achieving the revenue-collection target," he said.
The target of VAT collection earmarked for the commissionerate is Tk 69.20 billion. Of the target, the wing collected Tk 12.19 billion in the first quarter. The receipt, however, showed 15 per cent growth over the corresponding period.
He pointed out shortage of manpower in the commissionerate as a major obstacle as almost half the requisite staff positions remained vacant at this wing.
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