Bangladesh offered discount to encourage filing tax return online. Now the website is down

The National Board of Revenue had offered a Tk 2,000 discount on online return submission for the first-time income taxpayers to discourage in-person filing this year for fear of an escalation of coronavirus infections.

Abdur Rahim Badal Chief Economic Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 7 Oct 2020, 08:37 PM
Updated : 7 Oct 2020, 08:37 PM

Many citizens were planning to take the discount, while others wanted to avoid the risk of getting infected by submitting the returns with the Nov 30 deadline looming. But they were surprised to find that the web page for online tax return submission was not working.

NBR officials say chances of the web page being restored this year are slim, which means the citizens must visit the tax offices to submit returns while many agencies have resorted to the internet to get their jobs done amid the outbreak.

“No one can submit their returns online this time,” Hafiz Ahmed Murshed, a member of the NBR, told bdnews24.com on Wednesday.

A Vietnamese company named FTP Information System Corporation created the software for the online return submission on a Tk 510 million contract under a Tk 590 million project.

The company had completed building the programme and a database of taxpayers. Although the software was launched in 2016, the vendor company did not hand over the completed work after it was finished last year.

“The link (to the webpage) has been turned off due to the expiry of the term of the contract,” said Murshed.

He also said a renewal of the contract was being discussed, and online returns would remain suspended until a new deal was inked.

Former finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith inaugurated the online method in 2016 by submitting his own tax return online.

However, taxpayers were less enthusiastic about submitting returns online and only a few registered that year. The following fiscal year, 2017-18, the number rose to around 5,000 people and as many as 5,848 people switched to online submission in 2018-19.

In the 2019-20 financial year, a total of 7,207 people went for online submissions.

An average of 2.2 million to 2.3 million taxpayers file tax returns every year. The number of people who did it online over the past three years falls below 1 percent of the total on an average.

The announcement of the Tk 2,000 discount generated interest among some citizens, but the option is now gone.

Finals attempts to enter the link ‘Income Tax e-filing’ failed on Monday evening.

Ahsan H Mansur, the executive director of economic research organisation Policy Research Institute or PRI, is concerned.

“I’d say this is a huge failure and carelessness on the part of the top NBR officials. It's unacceptable. The people are giving their money, but they are not getting services. Why were the tax officials not involved in the creation of the software?” he asked.

“Those who submitted their returns online have to do it manually this time. I’m not quite sure whether we are moving forward or backward in this age of modern technology,” he added.

It appears that the NBR cannot keep the software operational if the Vietnamese organisation departs. This is ruining a good initiative, Mansur said.

“None of NBR’s automation projects has produced results. There is a lack of interest in automation among the NBR officials. They want to stick to the traditional system because it offers the opportunity to make money illegally,” he alleged.

The researcher feels that the top quarters of the government need to think the matter over.