A European Union-funded programme to modernise income tax litigation procedures will help boost the revenue sector of Bangladesh, speakers told a workshop.
The programme has been taken for technical assistance to support the implementation of the PFM Reform Strategic Plan in Bangladesh.
The speakers said that the programme is making significant strides towards strengthening domestic revenue mobilisation.
It is being implemented by DT Global.
The assistance is provided with the aim of strengthening the institutional capacity of the NBR and reforming existing systems and procedures of the revenue administration system, which is eventually expected to increase tax collection and improve revenue governance.
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As part of this ongoing commitment to reform the revenue administration system,
a workshop on Digitalisation of Income Tax Litigation Systems for the concerned officials was organised.
Officials of the NBR, the Attorney General’s Office, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB), and Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh (ICMAB) joined the workshop.
The two-day workshop was held on October 11-12 at Gazipur, Dhaka, in collaboration with the NBR.
President of Taxes Appellate Tribunal Md. Nazmul Karim graced the event as the chief guest. Member of Taxes Appeal and Exemption Md. Iqbal Hossain, member of International Taxes and Tax Information Management and Services A K M Badiul Alam and member of Taxes Legal and Enforcement Ahammad Ullah attended the event as the special guests.
The purpose of this workshop was to disseminate the outcomes of work undertaken following the initial workshop held in December 2022, which focused on reforming the agenda, particularly in the domain of Litigation Case Management.
The workshop also intended to promote stakeholder engagement towards refining and endorsing the draft products developed, including a case management framework, standard operational procedures and policies, process workflows, online appeal forms, and supporting data model.
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The workshop on Digitalisation of Income Tax Litigation Systems successfully accomplished its purpose by collaboratively devising an action plan to take digitisation of litigation systems forward, aiming to establish a SMART Litigation Digital environment.
Organisers said the participants are now expected to finalise a digitalised litigation blueprint containing appeal forms and an administrative process capable of handling online and paper-based appeal submissions.
This blueprint will serve as the platform for software development, which will be instrumental in contributing to a more transparent and efficient revenue administration system, they also informed.