NBR upbeat on large taxpayers

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) beat its target of collecting revenues from large taxpayers in the just-concluded fiscal year.
The tax administrator logged more than 6 percent growth over the target mainly because of its enhanced collection efforts.
The board's Large Taxpayer Unit (LTU) has collected Tk 6,165 crore against the target of Tk 5,800 crore, with Grameenphone paying the highest.
The leading mobile phone operator paid taxes of around Tk 750 crore last fiscal year, a sharp rise from Tk 535 crore in FY2008-09, according to NBR data.
Islami Bank and Standard Chartered Bank ranked second and third, paying Tk 333 crore and Tk 250 crore respectively.
The tax body sees the rise in collection as an achievement.
Syed M Aminul Karim, member (tax) of NBR, said the board launched an improved 'action plan' that enhanced the growth in revenue collection from the country's large taxpaying companies and individuals.
"The growth came because of the strong drive of the board to promptly collect revenues. The LTU launched an action plan to visit different companies for a quick examination of wealth and introduced e-filing system to ease collection," he said.
The board also formed a taskforce to collect taxes at source, which ensured a strong monitoring system and pushed up the growth, the official said.
Besides, the Central Audit Cell of NBR strengthened its drive to realise default tax and collected more than Tk 50 crore last year.
However, the response to online payment system was low, as only 40 large taxpayers responded online until January 2010.
The LTU has a total of 987 taxpayers -- 279 corporate and 708 individual taxpayers.
Karim said the LTU also increased the number of audit teams for a quick assessment of both normal and audit cases, and to collect data from different organisations to examine tax evasion complaints.
This helped the LTU achieve 25 percent of its annual target in the first month of last year, he added.
However, the tax administration body had to face some challenges to meet the revenue collection target last fiscal year.

[email protected]