NBR chairman asks revenue officials to become more empathetic towards business people

National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan today asked the revenue officials to become more empathetic towards the business community for the sake of flourishing business in the country.

“If we’re not empathetic towards the business people, then businesses in the country will not grow. I’m asking the revenue officials to be more empathetic, and it’s the reality,” he said.

The NBR chairman was addressing a pre-budget meeting with a number of business associations, held at the NBR Conference Room in the capital’s Agargaon area.

He said that taking less tax to give priority or imposing heavy tax are both unjust and punishable issues.

“Unfortunately we never identify these matters as well as didn’t take any action. From now on, we’ll identify these matters and will take action accordingly,” he said.

Rahman said that the budget for the next fiscal year 2025-26 would be rational for the business people so that they could get some benefits from it.

The NBR chief also said that the revenue board would gradually give some tax benefits to the business people and thus widen the tax base accordingly to enhance the revenue collection.

In this connection, he mentioned that right now there are some 1.13 crore TIN holders in the country, but only 41 lakh have so far submitted their income tax returns.

“We’re putting these TIN holders under surveillance, we’re tracing the tax evasion incidents, reducing harassment, and we’re closely monitoring these matters,” he said.

Abdur Rahman Khan said that there are many growth centres in the country at upazila and district level where the extent of business activities is huge.

“But, these people are not under the tax net. The income tax office has started its work while the VAT Commissionarates will also start their work,” he said.

In this regard, he said that the field-level officials would go to the growth centres, do the registration works, complete the assessment and thus take the payments.

“Everything will be done through online process. We need assistance from the business associations of the country for this purpose,” he added.

Regarding the alleged allegations of some corruption at the Chattogram Customs House, the NBR Chairman asked the concerned member to take drastic action if anyone is found guilty or caught red handed while committing any misdeed.

“If anyone is caught red handed, we’ll just tell that person that you have given so many services, thank you very much,” he said.

Talking about the reduced rate taxes, he said, “I think that enough is enough, for a long time you are giving reduced rate taxes, now time has come to pay taxes on standard rates.”

The NBR chairman also mentioned that over the last couple of months, the NBR has scrapped a number of SROs related to tax exemptions.

“Those SROs on exemptions will end on June 2025, let me assure you those will not be extended anymore,” he said. (BSS)