Tax-return filing to go online this year

The National Board of Revenue is working to give taxpayers the convenience to file and submit tax returns online from this year.

“We want to launch the digital platform ahead of the income tax fair in the first week of November this year so that individual taxpayers can file and submit returns online,” said a senior official of NBR seeking to remain unnamed.

The deadline for individuals to submit income tax returns is November 30, which is now called Tax Day. Taxpayers will have to pay penalty if they do not submit returns on or before the deadline, the NBR said.

Taxmen said they have already accommodated the current fiscal year's income tax-related changes in the software to introduce the e-filing system.

“We are fine-tuning the system now so that taxpayers can easily accomplish their tasks,” the official said.

The e-filing of tax returns is one of the two major schemes that the NBR took earlier to automate the tax and VAT systems to ease taxpayers' hassles and increase transparency and accountability in revenue administration.

Once introduced, the digital platform is also expected to reduce human interaction and ensure higher compliance by taxpayers.

In the past, particularly since 2009, the tax authority took several initiatives to facilitate tax return submission and tax payment online. 

However, except for the success in online registration of taxpayer's identification numbers, most of the previous initiatives were half-hearted and failed to win the hearts of taxpayers.

To automate the whole tax administration and tax system, the NBR took the e-filing of tax returns initiative in 2011 at a cost of Tk 78.98 crore. Of the amount, Tk 12.98 crore came from government funds and the rest from the Asian Development Bank.

The tax authority has already brought its tax offices under one network as part of the objective of automation. It has also set up a data centre, along with a data recovery centre at Bangladesh Computer Council.

Under the electronic tax return filing scheme, taxpayers will be able to prepare their annual income and expenditure statements as well as payable tax online through debit or credit card.

After preparing statements, they will get the scope to print the prepared returns. They will get confirmation or acknowledgement receipts of their tax returns from the authority electronically.

Taxpayers will also get tax payment certificates electronically. “Our objective is to relieve taxpayers from visiting tax offices. The cost of compliance will also decrease,” the NBR official said.

The NBR hired FPT Information System, a Vietnamese firm, to develop the online system. The company will provide support services to the NBR from 2015 to 2018 so that the e-filing system runs smoothly.

Insiders said the automation will also enable taxmen to easily monitor the trend of tax return submission and tax payments.

Taxmen at any field office will be able to see the number of tax return submitted after the deadline of return submission, according to the NBR.

Also, tax files for audit will be selected automatically based on criteria.  “So there will be no human interaction in selecting tax files for auditing.”

The automated system will also enable tax administration to remain up-to-date on the latest tax collection status, he added.

The NBR said the online tax system will merge IT-based initiatives, such as online VAT administration and Customs' Asycuda World system, to enable taxmen to gather and exchange information among departments.