NBR survey in 5 metro areas, Rangpur from tomorrow
1.64 lakh people targeted for tax net
Star Business Report
Aiming to bring 1.64 lakh people under tax net by this year, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to expand its survey activities to five divisional cities and Rangpur Municipality area from tomorrow. A total of 48 teams comprising high officials of the NBR will conduct the survey until December 31, 2007. Earlier, the NBR has brought 20,000 people under tax net through a recent survey in some areas of the capital city. Among them, NBR detected 11,000 taxable persons, who will have to submit their returns in FY 2007-08. Before staring the survey in the five metropolitan cities and Rangpur, NBR Chairman Badiur Rahman had meeting with the board officials yesterday to outline a guideline to succeed in the drive. In the meeting, he asked his officials to make it sure that taxpayers are not harassed. "I can give the guarantee to the taxpayers that they will not be harassed", he said. The NBR chief also reiterated that the people would get the chance to whiten their undisclosed money through giving a 5 percent fine by the 31st of this month. The country's prime revenue collection authority earlier gave the tax payers a two-month time starting from June for whitening such undisclosed money. The NBR chairman said after the expiry of this deadline such a fine will range from 250 to 500 percent. He, however, said there is no provision in the tax law to take any action against such money whitening. Till yesterday, the NBR received Tk6 crore as tax from the money whiteners, according to the source close to yesterday's meeting. Among the 48 survey teams, 20 teams will work in Dhaka, 11 in Chittagong, 3 in Rajshahi, 5 in Khulna, 3 in Barisal, 3 in Sylhet and 3 in Rangpur. Meanwhile, the NBR has brought about some changes in the survey activities and planned to give some benefits to its officials. The survey officials will be rewarded a Tk200 incentive every day and they can also enjoy holiday leave as usual. In Dhaka, the board surveyed some shopping malls and business houses, including Bashundhara city, Karnophuli Garden City, Twin Tower, Paul Well Market, Eastern Mollika, Eastern Plus, City Heart Centre, Pir Yamani Market, Baitul Mokkarram Market, Gulistan Underground Market, Elephant Road, Mouchak, Bijay Nagar, Gulshan, Uttara and Banani areas. Interestingly, the NBR survey found that 56 percent among 11,000 taxable persons are doing business in the city's elite areas like Gulshan, Banani, Uttara and Baridhara. The NBR teams will shortly go to the areas still remained beyond survey in Dhaka.
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