In its desperate drive to boost revenue collection, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to bring the companies enlisted with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) under watch to ensure that all the companies pay taxes and submit their income tax statements, reports UNB. "The NBR has directed the field offices to ensure submission of tax returns by those companies through surveys and inspections," an NBR official told the news agency.
He said more than half of the companies enlisted in the RJSC do not submit their income tax statements. The RJSC is the sole authority which facilitates formation of companies etc.; and keeps track of all the ownership-related issues as prescribed by the laws of the country. Currently, the number of RJSC-enlisted companies across the country is 47,434 and only 21,650 of them submitted their income tax statements in the 2014-15 fiscal year.
The alarming figure was revealed in a recent meeting on 'Budget Implementation Programme' held with NBR chairman Nojibu Rahman in the chair. The meeting proposed to hold a joint meeting of Securities Exchange Commission, Bangladesh Bank, NBR and RJSC.
"We've proposed to hold the joint meeting aiming to find out an effective path to stop this ill practice by some companies," said another senior NBR official. According to the RJSC, the number of registered companies under the organization is 128,000 where 45,000 companies took electronic tax identification number (e-TIN). Among the e-TIN holders, 21,650 companies submitted their income tax statements. As per the Income Tax Ordinance, submission of income tax return is a must for all the TIN or e-TIN holders. According to the 16 CCC of the Ordinance, the company-level taxpayers have to pay 0.30 per cent tax irrespective of profit or loss.
The NBR official said many company owners took the e-TIN or TIN to avail themselves of various business facilities, including taking bank loan, opening LC and others. "But later they hardly bother to submit their income tax statement... sometimes they shut down their companies," he said.
But, the NBR official admitted that small company owners often avoid tax offices fearing harassment. He also said the NBR is now under pressure as it got a gigantic target of Tk 176,370 crore revenue collection for the 2015-16 fiscal against Tk 135,028 last year. This year, the target was set to collect Tk 64,971 crore from income tax, while Tk 64,262 crore from VAT and Tk 18,752 from import duty. The target for export duty has been fixed at Tk 37 crore, excise duty at Tk 1,239 crore and supplementary duty at Tk 25,875.