The taxpayers would soon be able to adjust or claim a tax credit or seek a refund of their paid advance income tax (AIT) under the electronic tax deducted at source (e-TDS) system.
The tax authority has prepared a system to introduce the e-TDS at all the income tax offices across the country anytime soon.
An e-TDS design and development team has prepared the system through integrating it with all the relevant tax deducting authorities.
TDS contributes around 50 per cent of the total direct tax, around Tk500 billion, collection of the National Board of Revenue (NBR).
Tax officials said the e-TDS is one of the major automation works of income tax to ensure tax justice and check tax evasion by the deducting authority.
There are a total of 0.3 million tax deducting authorities including the government and private organisations, which are bound to deduct tax at source from the taxpayers and deposit it to the public exchequers.
It has been found that many of the deducting authorities refrain from depositing the taxpayers' money properly, taking advantage of the manual system.
The e-TDS would check such irregularities and ensure transparency in the system.
Talking to the FE, Moammad Jahid Hassan, tax commissioner of Zone-6 who is leading the e-TDS implementation team, said the system was fully ready to implement in all the tax zones across the country.
"We are waiting for NBR's approval to introduce the system centrally for the first time in Bangladesh," he added.
He informed that four tax zones are currently under a piloting programme of the e-TDS.
The NBR would sign memorandum of understanding to join hands with the automated chalan (a-chalan) system.
The taxpayers will be able to seek refund of their paid tax, adjust their TDS at the time of submission of tax returns and claim tax credit easily using the e-TDS system.
The system would be integrated with the a-chalan system developed by the ministry of finance.
With the help of a-chalan, the traders can make direct payments from their bank accounts through the real time gross settlement (RTGS) of the Bangladesh Bank.
The finance division of the finance ministry developed the a-chalan system under the improvement of public financial services delivery through implementation of budget and accounting classification and iBAS++ scheme.
It is a component of strengthening public financial management programme to enable service delivery.
An AI-based export-import engine has been prepared to facilitate the businesses to adjust advance paid tax at import or export stages.
The engine would be integrated with the Asycuda system of the customs department.
The NBR has completed vulnerability assessment and penetration testing and obtained certificate from Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) in this regard.
The NBR would transfer the e-TDS system in Bangladesh Data Center Company Limited (BDCCL) server.
It has already inserted SSL wild card on the system.
Officials said that there was a plan of NBR to introduce the e-TDS across the country from this month (July, 2021), but the process has been delayed due to COVID-induced lockdown and changes of NBR high officials.
In future, the e-TDS system would establish data sharing with e-return system to get tax deduction information of salary payment and other sectors.
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