Introduce tax incentives to encourage citizens

I would like to draw the attention of the Ministry of Finance and the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to the importance of introducing incentive schemes, similar to those in some other countries, to encourage the citizens to pay their income tax and do so on time. The incentives may include, among others, allowance when someone loses their job, reimbursement of medical bills at old age, and social welfare programmes which will entitle the tax payers to certain retirement benefits.  

The current system hardly provides any incentive to the people for paying their taxes. The feeling of give-and-take seems nearly non-existent, and the government is hardly providing for the wellbeing of the taxpayers. Tax payment should earn the citizens some sort of benefits in the short run to make it more compelling. I think the higher-ups at the NBR should take lessons from the experience of countries with such welfare schemes and try to replicate those in our system. Introduction of such methods will surely be beneficial to the government as well as the general public.

Nuruzzaman Khan, by email