President of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) Ashraf Ahmed called on the Chairman of National Board of Revenue (NBR) Md. Abdur Rahman Khan, FCMA at his NBR head office at Agargaon. During the meeting, Dhaka Chamber President Ashraf Ahmed said that a complicated tax management system hinders the businesses of CMSMEs, therefore he suggests easing and formulating a CMSME-friendly tax structure.
He said, as per the existing law, if the business losses cannot be adjusted with the income of other sources of the venture, the burden of additional tax is being imposed on the businessmen. For this purpose, he recommended the reinstatement of similar provision of Section 37 of the Income Tax Ordinance 1984.
The DCCI president also requested for the income tax system to be brought under the automated system to simplify tax payment and all tax-related matters. If the tax at source is not possible to be adjusted with the installment of advance income tax at this moment, the provision may be issued to provide an opportunity to carry forward the tax at source deducted from the payment of goods and services provided by the MSME to the next tax year along with the income tax.
Even if the product description is accurate, there is now a clause that allows for a fine of up to 400 per cent if the HS code is erroneous. By revising Section 86 (1) of the Customs Act 2023, there should have been a chance to change and withdraw the declaration of goods lodged at the assessment stage if the product’s description or HS code is accurate.
NBR Chairman Md. Abdur Rahman Khan said that only 5 per cent of the total population pays tax, whereas in India the rate is 23 per cent and in existing reality, there is no option to expand the tax net. The NBR Chairman further said that the maximum revenue comes from the existing taxpayers and a large section of the society is out of the tax net, thereby increasing the pressure on the existing taxpayers.
If the non-taxpayers remain out of the net year after year, the existing taxpayers will be discouraged from paying tax, so the NBR will work on a priority basis to expand the tax net in the next six months, he said. He further said that due to multiple tax layers at various stages, the effective tax rate especially of corporate tax sometimes increases, but the issue will be considered seriously by the NBR. Without reducing tax collection target, the revenue management of the country will be streamlined along with rationalizing the tax rate, he added.
The NBR chairman calls upon the business community to maintain the transaction process through cashless recordable system and banking channels which will help prevent TAX or VAT evasion. Later, he pushed DCCI to carry out independent or collaborative research studies to pinpoint different revenue sector issues and provide the likely results for NBR to attempt to resolve as soon as feasible.
DCCI Senior Vice President Malik Talha Ismail Bari and Vice President Md. Junaed Ibna Ali, Members of NBR Md. Masud Sadiq, AKM Badiul Alam and G M Abdul Kalam Kaikobad were also present on the occasion.
