The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is set to launch an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system to facilitate income taxpayers to file their returns online.
The home-grown system is scheduled to be introduced in September for individual taxpayers.
Taxpayers will be able to file their tax returns for the current fiscal year (FY), 2020-21, online using the software in their mobile phone set. Currently, the taxpayers have to submit tax returns manually.
After two attempts to introduce online tax returns failed, a team of the NBR developed the system by addressing all the shortcomings of the previous system, officials said.
The 13-member team, comprising income tax and ICT officials of the NBR, started developing the system in November 2020 to encourage tax return filing.
A senior income tax official said currently around 3.8 million Taxpayers Identification Number (TIN)-holders do not submit tax returns.
"Our objective is to bring those taxpayers under online return system first, and then gradually cover 80 per cent of taxable people."
With the system, taxpayers will be able to get tax certificate, acknowledgement slip, and TIN certificate anytime in their account.
Individual taxpayers will have to register in a site by using their biometrically verified cell-phone number for obtaining user identification (user ID) and password.
"Taxpayers will be able to file tax returns with a few clicks from their mobile phones," he added.
User acceptance test for the online return submission process was successfully completed last month (June). A total of 50 participants attended the internal test-run of the online return submission software.
The NBR's target is to make the facility available for the current FY's return submission, the official noted.
The new system will be an Application Programme Interface (API), where taxpayers' information will remain interlinked with other entities including banks, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC).
Marginal taxpayers will not have to take the trouble of filling up tax return forms with detailed information, as the API will insert relevant information in the interface identifying NID and TIN.
The system will have interconnectivity with banks to adjust the deducted amount of source tax on bank interest automatically in the interface of a taxpayer.
Its access will be developed for all commercial banks to get the amount of deducted source tax at the year-end, the official further said.
The individual taxpayers may not require submitting bank statements to adjust the source tax with payable taxes on their income.
There will be no scope of submitting fake TIN in bank to pay source tax at lower rate than those who do not have TIN.
Salary, allowances and other financial details of the government officials will automatically be inserted in the interface from IBAS system.
In the first phase, large individual taxpayers may face some difficulties, as they need to upload many supporting documents on assets and income.
But, marginal taxpayers would largely get benefit of the system, he added.
There will be a 'central service centre' to resolve taxpayers' problems relating to online return filing.
Earlier, the NBR hired Vietnamese company FPT to develop e-filing system under the Bangladesh Integrated Tax Administration System (Bitax).
However, both taxpayers and taxmen found the system complex and unfriendly.
In December 2011, the government, with fund support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), took the initiative to facilitate online tax return submission that was introduced in November 2016.
The online tax return filing venture, involving US$7.5 million, could not attract taxpayers, and the NBR discontinued the e-filing system last year.
Currently, some 52.41 per cent of the TIN-holders do not submit their tax returns despite a mandatory provision in the Income Tax Ordinance 1984 to do so.
