The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) will issue certificate to top five taxpayers in every district as appreciation. This certified taxpayers would have privilege to attend every national occasions, NBR sources informed.

These taxpayers will be chosen during this fiscal their payable income taxes, source added.

Earlier, the authority has listed top 20 taxpayers in the country but they were never formally acknowledged. It was also informed that nominees for this honour would be selected from taxpayers who will submit maximum amount as income tax in their annual returns.

However, according to the past experiences of income tax payment, top businessmen were rarely found in the list, while comparatively unknown businessmen were seen to be the top taxpayers.

For example, top 20 Tax VIPs' list in 2005 added only one well-known businessman. According to NBR source, mostly businessmen involve in importer and exporter tops the list every year.

Acceding to NBR office, the revenue-collecting department of Bangladesh Government has initiated various activities to enhance tax collection as well as encouraging more tax payees. As part of this campaign, Chairman of NBR Muhammad Abdul Majid and other higher officials have started visiting various tax paying areas in the country.

Areas like Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Bogra are well known as the top tax generating localities in the country. Higher NBR officials have already paid visits to those places to meet local businessmen. During their visits, NBR officials have encouraged local businessmen to submit annual returns by their own. So far, they have received encouraging responses in their visits, source from the NBR added.

For 2007, submission of 10 lakh annual returns was targeted in the place of total 22 lakh Tax Identification Numbers (TIN) in the country. Till December 2, 2007, total 6.45 lakh annual returns were received in different NBR offices across the country. Total aggregated revenue from this was Tk 739.11 crore, which was triple than the collected revenue in 2006.