The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is now going to adopt a new technique based on 'Business-Customs Partnership' trying to increase revenue collection by preventing tax-dodging tricks.

Under the new methodology the NBR will utilize the existing businessmen and their trade bodies in unearthing the revenue-dodgers.

"This system is effective and worked in many places around the world," NBR member (Customs and VAT Administration) M Farid Uddin told UNB Monday.

He said Business-Customs Partnership is a new idea in the financial world and this has been proved very much effective in catching the evaders.

In this connection, he said that the NBR would sit with the leading businessmen and trade bodies from different sectors and request them to provide information regarding the culprits, who are dodging revenue.

"As an example, an importer of a specific item will know better than the NBR officials about the import of the same item paying less duty or dodging the duty," he said about using the decoy to detect dodgers.

He said that the selling price of an item would not be the same when the item is imported by dodging duty. That means the honest importer will be incurring loss for the dishonest importer. "We will take this kind of incident as our hitting point," he said.

The affected importer will be our source in this connection and provide information as he is the most compatible person for giving information.

Describing the reason for taking such technique, the NBR member said that the revenue authority of the government suspected that due to wrong declaration of the importers the revenue-collecting agency of the government is losing good amounts of money.

"According to the new rule we cannot go for 100 percent verification of the imported items," he said about the legal lacking.

After introducing the pre-shipment inspection (PSI) system, the customs officials could go for physical verification of only 10 percent of the imports.

He also said that it would not be viable for the customs officials to go for cent-percent physical verification. This will slow down the release of the imported goods from the port, Farid Uddin added.

He said that the NBR is taking preparation at present to discuss the matter among the businesses and their trade bodies.

The NBR is going to adopt such technique as the government is apprehending less revenue from import duty in the coming days.

The revenue generation from imports will have to suffer more as the World Trade Organization (WTO) is heading towards a duty-free world, leveling the frontiers on the economic globe.

The Finance Minister, who has targeted some Tk 61,000 as revenue income in the current budget, had emphasized improving the revenue collection by any means during his visits to the NBR several times.

He had also directed the NBR to find out the pockets from where the government could earn revenues.