Survey to net new taxpayers moving at a snail's pace
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Doulot Akter Mala
Door-to-door survey to net 0.4 million new tax-payers is moving at a snail's pace due to manpower shortage in the NBR as the authority has failed to recruit tax officials or outsource the activity in the first half of the current fiscal.
The NBR survey team has been able to find out only 14,000 new taxpayers until now, the number being a small fraction of its targeted new taxpayers for the current year.
Officials said the NBR is unlikely to achieve the target unless the government recruits income tax officials in the vacant posts within a short time.
They said the NBR could net only a few new tax-payers while almost half of the year had already passed.
The NBR is still indecisive about its plan to outsource the external survey due to security reasons for door-to-door survey, said Shamvu Nath, who heads the tax survey wing.
"We have asked all the tax offices to conduct the survey with the existing manpower," he said.
The NBR will gear up the survey activities from January next, he added.
The National Board of Survey started the new tax-payers' survey from mid-August targeting 15 potential areas, but now it is extended to nation-wide survey, he said.
The NBR has found 60 per cent new tax-payers in the survey conducted at Uttara in Dhaka and Sitakundu of Chittagong.
Tax commissioners are conducting the survey in their respective tax zones in small teams led by joint or additional commissioners, an official said.
Recently, the NBR has split the target among its 16 tax zone offices in Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet, Barishal and Rangpur.
Eight tax zones in the capital city will have to net 0.2 million new tax-payers in external and internal survey while three tax zones under Chittagong division will have to find out 90,000 new tax-payers.
It is necessary to launch an integrated effort to raise the number of tax-payers through motivation and personal contact, the official said.
Country's tax GDP-ratio is still below 9.0 per cent due to lack of tax compliance among the people and inadequate motivational programme of the government, he said.
The NBR conducts the external survey every year but it could not play any significant role in raising the number of income tax-payers, he added.
A majority of the surveyed new tax-payers do not file tax returns due to lack of monitoring, he said.
Door-to-door survey to net 0.4 million new tax-payers is moving at a snail's pace due to manpower shortage in the NBR as the authority has failed to recruit tax officials or outsource the activity in the first half of the current fiscal.
The NBR survey team has been able to find out only 14,000 new taxpayers until now, the number being a small fraction of its targeted new taxpayers for the current year.
Officials said the NBR is unlikely to achieve the target unless the government recruits income tax officials in the vacant posts within a short time.
They said the NBR could net only a few new tax-payers while almost half of the year had already passed.
The NBR is still indecisive about its plan to outsource the external survey due to security reasons for door-to-door survey, said Shamvu Nath, who heads the tax survey wing.
"We have asked all the tax offices to conduct the survey with the existing manpower," he said.
The NBR will gear up the survey activities from January next, he added.
The National Board of Survey started the new tax-payers' survey from mid-August targeting 15 potential areas, but now it is extended to nation-wide survey, he said.
The NBR has found 60 per cent new tax-payers in the survey conducted at Uttara in Dhaka and Sitakundu of Chittagong.
Tax commissioners are conducting the survey in their respective tax zones in small teams led by joint or additional commissioners, an official said.
Recently, the NBR has split the target among its 16 tax zone offices in Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet, Barishal and Rangpur.
Eight tax zones in the capital city will have to net 0.2 million new tax-payers in external and internal survey while three tax zones under Chittagong division will have to find out 90,000 new tax-payers.
It is necessary to launch an integrated effort to raise the number of tax-payers through motivation and personal contact, the official said.
Country's tax GDP-ratio is still below 9.0 per cent due to lack of tax compliance among the people and inadequate motivational programme of the government, he said.
The NBR conducts the external survey every year but it could not play any significant role in raising the number of income tax-payers, he added.
A majority of the surveyed new tax-payers do not file tax returns due to lack of monitoring, he said.