The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is contemplating further simplification of rules and regulations for payment of taxes on the basis of success of new system introduced this year, sources said.

NBR introduced self-assessment system and Unified Taxpayers Identification Number (UTIN) for the large taxpayers unit (LTU) this year with a plan of geting higher amount of taxes from more taxpayers.

The income tax return form has also been reduced to just one page for the convenience of the taxpayers.

"All these are a test case," said a senior official of NBR. "If these work well, we are thinking of further simplifying the procedures."

NBR Chairman Badiur Rahman recently said that lot of changes had been made in the system of income tax return and they would think of further simplification on good response from the taxpayers.

He gave a broad hint that the taxpayers need not come to the tax office to pay tax. "They can pay tax the way they pay utility bills in banks or such similar procedures," he said.

But everything depends on the atitude of the taxpayers---whether they are responding to the new simplified system or not, he added.

On UTIN the official said it can be extended to individual level in case of success of in LTU. "If we get a good response then it will be introduced in individual level in Dhaka and if we get good response then it will be further extended to the entire country."

The government set a target of revenue collection of Tk 43,850 crore in the current fiscal, which includes Tk 10,838 crore from income tax sub sector.