DHAKA, Aug 6, 2019 (BSS) – Aiming to bring the house owners under tax net, National Board of Revenue (NBR) is mulling use of police database as it has detailed information of house owners and tenants.
The tax authority is considering such a move as the house owners are frequently dodging the tax hiding their property in many ways, said officials.
An official of the NBR told BSS that despite different initiatives, a good number of house owners in the capital city and elsewhere in the country remained out of tax net resorting to malpractices.
“The use of police database will not only ease the process of identifying the house owners but also help us bring them under tax net,” he said.
Police have developed the database comprising the information of house owners, tenants, flat owners, business entities and shop owners etc in Dhaka and some other big cities.
Replying to a query, the NBR official said the income tax act in its E sub-clause under the clause 184 has empowered the tax authority to seek any cooperation from any government entity.
“So, we could use the police database to identify the house owners,” he said, adding, ” the number of tax payer would rise to 50 lakh easily as most of the house owners in big cities across the country is believed to be eligible for tax.”
The official, however, said the NBR is yet to take final decision of using the police database.
At present, the country has a total of 41 lakh E-TIN holders, of which only 21 lakh submitted income tax return. But, 10 percent of the 21 lakh enjoys “zero return”.