Will have 3 million taxpayers, says Muhith

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has revealed plans to raise the number of active taxpayers by almost three times.

In his FY 2015-16 budget proposals at Parliament, he said efforts will be made to raise the number of tax payers to 3 million.
 
The number of TIN (tax identification number) holders in Bangladesh is now just over 1.1 million, but not all of them file taxes.

“In Bangladesh, only around 1.2 million individual and organisations currently pay income taxes.
 

“Recently, the NBR was able to identify a number of wealthy individuals and organisations after conducting survey in several locations. Individual or corporate tax will be imposed on them from this year,” Muhith said in his budget speech on Thursday.
 
He added that such NBR survey would continue. “Our target is to raise the number of active taxpayers to 3 million by the end of the tenure of this government.”
 
According to the finance minister, tax deduction at source (TDS) is now the largest source of income tax collections. “Plans are on to set up a separate Taxes Zones for monitoring collection of TDS.”
 
The proposed 2915-16 budget aims to collect revenues worth Tk 2.08 trillion. Of that, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) will collect Tk 1.76 trillion.