The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has set a target to find out a total of 0.7 million new taxpayers in the current fiscal year (FY), 2018-19, from the owners of house properties, businesses and salaried persons.
Officials said the NBR's Income Tax Wing will conduct a door-to-door survey on the basis of holding numbers and other information, collected from the two city corporations.
The NBR's Tax Survey and Inspection Wing has found around 230,000 holdings under the Dhaka South City Corporation and 162,000 holdings under the Dhaka North City Corporation.
Taxmen will scrutinise whether residents of these holdings have taxable income or they are included in tax-net.
The wing has also found at least 1.3 million businesses across the country, which are also eligible to pay tax.
Talking to the FE on Tuesday, NBR Member (Tax Survey and Inspection Wing), Md Miftah Uddin Khan said the field-level tax officials have started visiting houses, business outlets and shops from last week to find out new taxpayers.
Until January of the current FY, the NBR has netted some 250,000 new taxpayers. The taxmen will be able to find out 450,000 more taxpayers afresh following the increased efforts, he also said.
"As per the finance minister's plan, the field-level tax offices will appoint university students for monitoring the survey activities."
The tax officials will not be able to harass the taxpayers during the survey due to monitoring by the outsiders. There will be no scope of 'pick and choose' by the survey officials, he added.
The NBR member, however, noted that stern actions will be taken, if anyone creates obstacles in conducting survey activities.
"We will file FIR (First Information Report) or case as part of taking legal actions, if anyone hinders the government officials."
"The surveyors will wear special jackets and cap while visiting the spots, so that people can identify them easily."
The taxmen will issue e-TIN (Taxpayer's Identification Number) to the new taxpayers during the survey. The tax officials will issue Temporary Registration Number (TRN) for the persons, who will deny obtaining e-TIN.
The tax officials will also conduct spot assessment on businesses and professionals to bring them under tax-net.
He further said the Central Survey Zone has been empowered to cross-check survey extracts of the field-level tax offices to find out people, who are not yet included in tax-net.
The zone will sit with the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB) to match the data of house property with the city corporations' information.
Application software will be prepared to maintain a database of the taxpayers and prepare their profiles. Once the software is prepared, people having taxable income will not be able to conceal the data of their house property and other valuables.
The NBR member also said there will be a uniform survey form for all the tax offices to collect and maintain the survey data. Currently, the tax offices are using their own survey format due to absence of such a format.
A vetted form will be incorporated in the income tax law for collecting survey extracts, he added.
Currently, there are some 3.7 million TIN holders in the country, and some 2.0 million taxpayers submit their returns regularly. However, according to the officials, the number of income taxpayers should be more than 10 million in the country.
