The number of submission of returns by individual taxpayers increased by almost 15 percent in the last fiscal year (FY21) despite the COVID-19 pandemic as a total of 24,30,645 TIN holders submitted their returns during that period. According to the National Board of Revenue (NBR), a total of 21,14,385 individual taxpayers submitted their returns in the FY20. Some 3,16,260 more individual taxpayers submitted their returns in the last fiscal year.
Talking to the media, NBR member (income tax policy) Md Alamgir Hossain said that although the entire country went through the pandemic, but under the directives of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the NBR had tried to stand beside the common people during that period. “The revenue board offices did not remain closed for a single day while the revenue collection, as well as the number of returns, increased in that period since all tax-related services remained open,” he added.
Alamgir also opined that the revenue collection increased due to strict monitoring and some legal changes in realizing tax at source. He said, “Since it has been made mandatory to submit returns by all TIN holders, the number of submissions of tax returns increased in the last year. Besides, awareness has been created among people in submitting returns and we’re getting its benefits,” The number of TIN holders in the country is 56 lakh.
The revenue collection in the last fiscal year (FY21) totaled 2.60 lakh crore which is also 20 percent higher than the FY20 when the revenue collection totaled Taka 2,16,540 crore. In the last fiscal year (FY21), Taka 85,224 crore was collected from income tax, Taka 97,490 crore from VAT and Taka 77,150 crore from Customs duty.