Tax rates to fall if tax net widens: experts

The tax rates will come down if more people are brought under the tax net and if the government reduces the tax rate, people will be less inclined towards evading tax, speakers told a seminar yesterday.

The seminar, "Role of Income Tax in Implementation of Vision and Building of Future Bangladesh", was organised by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) on its premises marking "National Income Tax Day 2021".

This year the day's theme is "Implementation of Mujib year's pledge by ensuring spontaneous participation of taxpayers in paying taxes".

In a presentation the NBR said it would increase the contribution of direct tax in overall revenue collection to 50 per cent by 2041 and soon a sustainable revenue system would be formulated to increase the revenue administration's overall capacity.

There is no alternative to raising direct taxes in the current era of industrialisation, said Law Minister Anisul Huq.

"I would like to request the rich and wealthy people of the country to help increase the revenue and development of the country by paying taxes on the taxable income. Your tax money is the main driving force of the country's development," he said.

NBR Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem said as a country develops, its direct tax base increases.

"We could not touch all the areas of our direct tax. This means that the task of collecting taxes is not yet completely successful. I think it is very important to increase the tax net. We are trying to address the various challenges," he said.

"If we increase our collection, if we reduce the tax rate, we will be able to encourage more people to pay taxes," he said.

"If we look back at the situation of Bangladesh in terms of revenue collection, we can see that there was a situation in the '80s when 100 per cent of development projects had to be run with the help of development partners," said Munim.

"Now I am implementing about 90 per cent of the development projects using domestic resources. This is a huge step forward in terms of revenue collection," he said.

"We must move forward together to achieve our goals. There is always a kind of pressure on those who are regularly paying taxes," said Md Jashim Uddin, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

He said the government should explore new areas to impose taxes.

"We will do our best to increase the tax net and increase the revenue. Audits are often embarrassing. Audits should be done through a rule. Many businessproplr often suffer from many problems. We also want Bangladesh to move forward. Increase revenue," he said.