10 lakh, out of 15 lakh e-return filers, have submitted zero returns: NBR chairman

Nearly 10 lakh taxpayers, out of 15 lakh e-returns, don’t have taxable income, said Chairman of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) Md Abdur Rahman Khan on Monday.

“The number of quality taxpayers is very negligible in the country. We had taken aggressive policy to increase the tax collection.”

While speaking at the pre-budget meeting at ERF event, he said “I have requested (Finance Adviser), sir please cut short the budget size and give some relief to people”.

He said that work on increasing the operational efficiency has been taken to catch the tax evaders through improving professional excellence and put emphasis on containing tax evasion in the country that has become a normal phenomenon.

“If we consider raising the tax limit to Tk 4 lakh or above, the number of zero-return filers may increase by another 1 lakh.”

Abdur Rahman added, “If input VAT credit and standard VAT rate can be imposed properly, then for many business entities the rate would be less than one percent.”

“The power of VAT was accounting based and invoice based one, we have destroyed that, as a result it is not growing right now, we have uprooted the main strength of VAT, we want to return the discipline of VAT,” he said.