Keeping more than 1 car gets costlier

If you have more than one car, SUV or minivan -- be it individually or jointly owned -- you have to pay 50 percent more income tax for each of such vehicles from the current fiscal year.

The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) has started executing the move spearheaded by the National Bureau of Revenue (NBR) from July 1, said BRTA and NBR officials.

The development came seven years after the government imposed 50 percent additional tax on the owners having more than one such vehicles in 2014-15 fiscal year.

The government incorporated the provision of collecting additional tax in the Income Tax Ordinance-1984 at that time, but the additional tax could not be collected due to complications, including absence of necessary operating system at BRTA.

In an apparent bid to control small vehicles like cars, SUVs and microbuses, which is often blamed for traffic jam in the city, and collect higher tax from affluent people, the government had taken the decision to slap more tax at that time.

A total of 16.81 lakh vehicles got registered with Dhaka offices of BRTA till May this year. Of them, 4.39 are cars, SUVs and microbuses, show BRTA documents.

The BRTA, on behalf of the NBR, collects advance income tax from vehicle owners, thorough online banking system, while the owners have to pay for tax token or update vehicles' fitness certificates.

BRTA Chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder said owners of more than one car, SUV and microbus have to pay 50 percent additional advance income tax from July 1.

"We have introduced the system," he told The Daily Star last night.

HOW MONEY TO BE PAID?

Explaining the matter, a BRTA official said if a person owns a 1,500cc car, he or she has to pay Tk 25,000 annually as advance income tax (AIT) now.

But if he or she has two such cars, then they have to pay Tk 37,500 as AIT for the second car. Similarly, they have to pay Tk 37,500 for the third one, the official said, wishing not to be named.

When a car owner will go to bank and shows his or her e-TIN (online taxpayer identification number), the bank official will be able to know the vehicle/vehicles the particular person ownsand will take the particular amount from him or her, the official said.

A person with fake e-TIN certificate will not be able to pay the AIT, the official said.

Asked about the delay in executing the decision, he said there were some complications in this regard and they have to solve those.

The official added that their vendor developed the operating system to collect the additional tax and completed the trial run before formally introducing it on July 1.

A NBR official said a good number of vehicles got registered with the BRTA with fake TIN certificates due to the lack of scope for verifying the authenticity of certificates.

But now the BRTA has the access to NBR's TIN database, it is not possible to get vehicle registered with fake TIN certificates, the official said, seeking anonymity.

Meanwhile, the BRTA, in circular issued yesterday, said if any vehicle owner faces problem in this regard, he or she is requested to inform the BRTA office of the matter via email as the circle offices remained closed due to the ongoing lockdown.

The mail address is: ad@brta.gov.bd. The owners have to send soft copies of NID, e-TIN and acknowledgement slip to the mail address.