Finance and Commerce Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed on Tuesday asked the National Board of Revenue (NBR) not to collect taxes forcefully from the taxpayers.
“There should not be any force on the existing taxpayer. All are not equal, every person cannot pay taxes, that do not mean you will collect tax forcibly,” he said while speaking at the meet the press at NBR on the occasion of introducing online income tax return submission facility.
He also put emphasis on bring all eligible persons under the tax net as many people have the capacity to pay tax.
“All eligible have to be put under the tax net. If you bring those people under the tax net it would be better,” he said.
The adviser said that it is a tough job to provide government services when people don't pay taxes.
He also said that taxpayers feel easy while not seeing the face of any tax officials. “…and you know the various meanings of seeing the face of tax officials.”
He put emphasis on deposit the taxes in the national exchequer without any leakage.
“From now on we will avoid any leakage in tax payment and for that purpose we have introduced the online tax payment system,” he said.
The Finance Adviser said that the government can not run the country through borrowing from savings certificates and taking loans from abroad.
Narrating the benefits of online submission, Dr Salehuddin hoped that this year some 15 lakhs individual taxpayers would submit their income tax return through the online system.
“We will be able to get rid of them from the dependency on others.”
NBR Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan said that this year the online income tax return submission started on September 9, but from the next fiscal it will start from July 1, the first day of the fiscal year.
“We are taking preparations towards that. Our main goal is to introduce a taxpayers friendly culture, especially reducing the compliance cost.”
He said that the NBR will gradually incorporate all related sectors in this system to make the income tax submission more hassle free.
“We want to go for comprehensive automation,” he said.
In 2021-22 fiscal the income tax submission through online was 61,000, in 2022-23 it was 244,000 and in 2023-24 it was 526,000.
“This year we hope that the lion share of the individual tax return submission will be done through online,” he added.The NBR Chairman said that from Thursday a call center will be introduced from 9am to 5pm for helping the taxpayers.
“Although we have been able to do a little thing so far, but our dream is very big,” he added.
