Make filing taxes easy enough: HT Imam

Dhaka, Sep 16 -Prime Minister's Public Administration Affairs Advisor H T Imam has the tax authorities to make the procedure 'easy enough' to file tax returns.
"The whole procedure, including the provision to file returns online, is not easy enough. It has to be made simpler," he said while inaugurating the third Income Tax Fair on Sunday at the Dhaka Officer's Club.
The National Income Tax Fair will be held in seven divisional headquarters and 18 district towns to encourage people to pay taxes.
The fair will run for seven days to Sep 22 in the divisional headquarters and from Sep 16 to 20 in the district towns.
According to NBR, the income tax collection in the 1972-1973FY was Tk 103.6 million, which increased to Tk 282.62 billion in the 2011-12FY. The country's current tax-GDP ratio is 10.49 percent and the government has the target to raise it to 13 percent of GDP by 2016.
Pointing out that the fair was organised to inspire people to give taxes, NBR Chief Nasir Uddin Ahmed said that they were hoping to organise fairs at all district towns from next year.
He continued that the board targeted to provide services to at least 0.1 million people through the fair.
People visiting the fair from 10am to 5pm will be able to file returns, get new Tax Identification Numbers (TIN), pay taxes and get advices on various issues.
The NBR has set a target of Tk 1,122.59 billion revenue collection in the current fiscal, of which Tk 353 billion is to come from income tax.
NBR's records show that even though there were around 3.5 million people with TINs, only 1.4 million pay income tax.