The white elephant called central tax zone of NBR

The government has spent a staggering Tk 320 million for more than a decade and a half for the central tax survey zone that is running without conducting survey.
The zone, which virtually turned into a white elephant at the taxpayers' expense, was set up in 1992 to carry out the routine survey of new taxpayers.
Every year, the government allocates Tk 20 million for the central survey zone and its seven circle offices across the country.
Ignoring the separate wing, the revenue board has empowered field-level tax offices to conduct the new taxpayers' survey in 2001.
Currently, the field-level tax offices are carrying out a survey despite the separate zone existing.
Officials said new taxpayers' survey is now running at a snail's pace for a lack of proper initiatives.
The survey-related task of the central survey zone has been suspended on an excuse of 'underperformance', they mentioned.
In the past 16 years, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) neither disbanded the zone nor strengthened its capacity to do so.
Md Bashir Uddin, member of the then income tax administration, said the NBR got the survey done by its field offices for the central zone's poor capacity.
"There was a shortage of logistics in the survey zone. The inspectors of the circle offices were discouraged to work under the wing," he added.
Mohammed Humayun Kabir, taxation subcommittee convener of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said an independent survey is needed at the national level to find new taxpayers.
"An integrated survey, instead of the current scattered one, for income tax and VAT payers can bring an effective result," he added.
A global-standard methodology should be followed for survey to make it hassle-free, Mr Kabir observed.
"The government now spends taxpayers' money to do survey which needs to be result-oriented," he added.
A senior official of the central zone said some 22 survey teams were formed for field-level tax offices keeping aside the central survey zone.
"The zone found some 1.0 million new taxpayers during the 1992-2001 period. It handed survey extracts to tax offices to increase the number of taxpayers," he said.
The official said the central zone planned to revive its activity by launching a five-year project.
"We've a target to raise the number of individual taxpayers to 10 million and revenue Tk 300 billion in the next five years through resuming survey activity."
Currently, the survey zone has circle offices in Dhaka, Chattogram, Khulna and Rajshahi.
Md Asaduzzaman, commissioner of the central survey arm, said the zone could help boost revenue collection and the number of taxpayers by reinforcing its capacity.
"We need support from the government to carry out new taxpayers' survey with the help of advanced technology," he added.
The survey zone has outlined a plan to use the cutting-edge software to carry out survey in an effective way.
A deal might be done with Google to use its map.
It will also track taxpayers with the help of city corporations, utility service providers, immigration authority and banks.
Around Tk 10 billion would be needed to establish interconnectivity and run the proposed project, Mr Asaduzzaman said.
Officials said some 74 new posts would have to be created for the survey zone to smoothly carry out its activity.
Income tax member (admin and human resources management) Ziauddin Mahmood spoke of the expansion plan of the survey zone as a specialised unit.
"Taxpayers' information management would be done through establishing interconnectivity with other departments," he said.
Currently, the zone is dealing with tax files of 2,000 individual taxpayers and monitoring advance tax collection from land and cars.
It collected Tk 15 billion in income tax in fiscal year 2017-18.
The target for the zone has been set at Tk 24 billion for the current year.

[email protected]