The former chairman of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) who has announced his decision to go on voluntary retirement from public service obviously in protest against the order transferring him to the ministry of flood and disaster management as its secretary has otherwise been forthright in his statement to the press after handing over the charge to the new chief of the board.
We agree with him that there is now a greater awarances than before among the tax payers, actual and potential, about meeting their obligations in making due payment of taxes. The drive that the erstwhile NBR chairman carried forward against tax dodgers during his tenure has served one message clearly: those who have taxable income must pay their taxes. This awareness is welcome and hopefully all concerned will go by the rules in clearing off their tax bill as per law.
However, we do not understand whether the drive that the former NBR chairman claimed as his success was initiated at his own behest or at the directive of the caretaker government. Certainly, no NBR chief can start filing eases against 'very powerful persons', remind the tax-payers sternly about the requirement for paying taxes up to 500 per cent of their tax-evaded income in case of default and take all other harsh punitive measures, without having the prior clearance of the highest authority of the government. We hope that the erstwhile NBR chairman will make things clear for our understanding of the situation.
Meanwhile, we, the ordinary citizens, consider it an imperative duty on the part of all law-abiding tax payers not to hide income and to make due payment of taxes in accordance with the provisions of the law. But, tax rates do also need to be realistic for that purpose. Furthermore, we would like to note here that the objective of tax compliance can better be pursued through incentives and inducements and not by coercive means. The accumulated problem of tax evasion, for whatever reasons, cannot be redressed by only injecting fear of severe punishment into the minds of the people
Sohel Ahmed
Kakrail, Dhaka
Tax compliance not by fear alone
FE Team | Published: October 24, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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