National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman and Internal Resources Division (IRD) Secretary Md Abdur Rahman Khan has called for ensuring trade facilitation while strictly enforcing laws to meet the revenue targets for the current fiscal year.
“No importer or exporter should face harassment by unnecessary BIN lock,” he said.
Speaking at separate review meetings on revenue collection performance of the Customs, VAT, and Income Tax wings for July of the 2025-26 fiscal year, the NBR chief said the focus should be on smooth operations rather than unnecessary complications for compliant businesses.
According to a press release issued on Friday, the NBR chairman said that the main focus of the NBR should be to ensure trade facilitation and ensure the desired amount of revenue collection through proper implementation of existing laws.
He advised to take appropriate action based on the revenue risk, taking into account the past records maintained in the Asycuda system, instead of locking the bins of importers or exporters out of suspicion.
He said that honest and compliant importers and exporters cannot be harmed in any way by locking bins unnecessarily. Every customs house and intelligence office should give a clear explanation in every monthly revenue meeting about the reason for locking the bins of importers and exporters and the amount of additional tax collected from each activity taken.
“The applicable tax should be collected legally by properly implementing the VAT law.”
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In this case, he advised the officials to get out of the concept of growth or growth in collection.
"It is not appropriate to put unnecessary additional pressure on those who pay VAT honestly and in accordance with the rules. In the case of VAT collection, those who do not pay VAT at all should be brought into the VAT net and those who evade VAT should be given exemplary punishment as per the law to increase VAT collection."
The meeting was instructed to ensure VAT registration of all those who are required to register for VAT according to the law to increase the scope of VAT.
The NBR chairman instructed the concerned to take immediate action to make it mandatory to perform all bond activities online within the next one month, like the Bangladesh Single Window and online income tax return filing.
He suggested setting a time limit for each service in performing bond activities online and instructed to introduce a system to hold the concerned officer accountable if they fail to provide the desired service within the stipulated time.
If there is evidence of sale of goods brought under the bond facility in the market, the chairman directed to immediately cancel the bond license of the importer concerned.
If there is evidence of the slightest involvement of any officer or employee of the Revenue Department in the misuse of the bond facility, he directed to bring them under the law.
He asked to know from the commissioners about the steps taken to prevent the misuse of the bond and expressed his intention not to make any concessions in this regard.
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Instructions were given to present the results obtained from the bond audit activities specifically in every revenue meeting.
Instructions were also given to reduce the container jam by strengthening the auction activities in the customs houses. Instructions were given to sell the containers that have been lying at the port for a long time at auction quickly by December 2025.
Taking part in the revenue collection situation review of the Income Tax Division, the chairman suggested that adequate manpower be deployed in all commissionerates to assist taxpayers in filing e-returns so that they can get answers to their queries from the call center at all times.
He directed to establish a connection between the eTin and eTDS systems as soon as possible and update the taxpayer information and jurisdiction in the eTDS system automatically according to the information stored in the eTIN system.
He asked to ensure maximum implementation of the existing law to increase the collection of outstanding taxes.
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Instructions were given in the meeting to quickly settle all audit cases, create tax claims and collect taxes following the audit instructions recently issued by the National Board of Revenue.
Special emphasis was placed on expediting audit activities to increase income tax collection. The meeting emphasised on taking necessary steps to implement the initiative taken to make the audit selection process of individual taxpayers completely transparent and impartial in an automated manner in the case of corporate taxpayers as well.
The chairman directed that all taxpayers who do not file income tax returns despite having TINs should be given notices to file returns, their income, expenditure and assets should be investigated on-site, income tax should be levied as per the law and collected, and all activities should be taken as per the Income Tax Act to present information and data in the revenue meeting every month.
He emphasised that each tax region should increase its intelligence activities to uncover tax evasion. He directed that tax collection activities should be accelerated by processing the filed income tax returns as per the provisions of the Income Tax Act.
It was decided in the meeting that all the monitoring members of the National Board of Revenue, who are responsible for supervising the activities of the tax commissioners, should meet with one of the commissioners every week to monitor the activities taken against non-filers, tax evasion detection activities, return processing activities for the 2024-25 tax year, and settlement of pending audit cases and inform the chairman of the National Board of Revenue through a separate briefing session.
Among others, all the commissioners of the Customs and VAT and Income Tax Divisions and all the members of the National Board of Revenue participated in the discussion. All those present expressed their strong determination to continue all-out efforts to increase tax-GDP by increasing revenue collection.