150 top doctors to come under NBR scrutiny

The tax authority has moved to scrutinise income tax files of some 150 top physicians of the country following alleged mismatch between their declared and actual income, sources said.
The initiative has been taken as part of the ongoing efforts to increase tax collection from the potential sectors.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has prepared a list of physicians to audit their tax files on the basis of available information.
Usually, a handful of tax returns under the universal self-assessment system face audit. But, in that case, all the tax files of those doctors will be audited.  The proposal on auditing top physicians' tax files has been approved by the NBR recently.
Taxmen would also find out whether all registered physicians, having taxable income, have tax files or not.
"We would scrutinise the declared and actual income of physicians. There is strict instruction for the field level taxmen to be cautious in dealing with the taxpayers and not to harass them," said a senior tax official.
He said there are around 10,000 physicians who have tax files across the country.
The official, however, acknowledged that physicians are one of the highest taxpayers among the professionals.
It is alleged that many top physicians hide information on commissions that they receive from diagnostic centres. Some are also charging higher amount of fees for hospitalised patients and the conceal number of actual patients who get treatment in the chambers.
Tax officials said the concealment will be detected through auditing of their tax files.
Tax officials said the physicians pay nearly Tk 1.0 billion income tax annually which was less than Tk 100 million in fiscal year (FY) 2009-10.
Tax payment by physicians increased sharply in the last five years with the expansion of private medical services across the country.
The tax official said all of the untapped sectors including tax payment by professionals will be monitored to reduce big tax gap in the country.
According to the data of Ministry of Health, there are some 53,063 registered doctors across the country. Of them, some 43,537 are available in the country.   
Majority of the doctors, around 58 per cent, are working in the private sector, the data said.
Responding to a query on poor number of taxpayers out of the registered doctors, another senior tax official said doctors who are employed in public sector are not well paid while junior doctors start their career with nominal salaries compared to that of other private sector employees.
Renowned doctors who are involved in private practice have significant amount of annual income but others do not have, he added.