National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan on Thursday asked the revenue officials to be more empathetic towards the business people for the sake of growing business in the country.

“If we are not empathetic towards businesspeople, the country's economy will not thrive. I urge revenue officials to be understanding—this is the reality,” he said at a pre-budget meeting with business associations at the NBR conference room.

He said that taking less tax to give priority or imposing heavy tax both are unjust and punishable issue.

“Unfortunately we never identify these matters as well as did not take any action, from now on we will identify these matters and will take actions accordingly,” he said.

He said that the budget for the next 2025-26 fiscal will be rational for the business people so that they could get some benefits from it.

The NBR chief also said that from his organisation it will give some tax benefits for the business people gradually and widen the tax base accordingly to enhance the revenue collection.

In this connection he mentioned that there are some 1.13 crore TIN holders in the country right now, but regretfully only 41 lakh have submitted their income tax return so far.

“We are putting these TIN holders under surveillance, we are tracing the tax evasion, reducing harassment, we are closely monitoring these matters,” he said.

Abdur Rahman Khan said that there are many growth centres in the country in upazila and district level where the amount of business is huge.

“But these people are not under the tax net, income tax office has started its work, VAT commissionarate will start their work,” he said.

In this regard he said that the field level officials will go to the growth centres, do the registration works, complete the assessment and take the payment.

When his attention was drawn about the allegations of corruption in the Chittagong Customs House, the NBR Chairman asked the concerned member to take drastic actions if anyone caught red handed while doing any misdeeds.

“If anyone caught red handed, we will just tell that person— you have given so many services, thank you very much,” he said.

Talking about the reduced rate taxes, he said, “I think that enough is enough, for a long time you are giving reduced rate taxes, now time has come to pay taxes on standard rates.”

He also mentioned that in the last couple of months, the NBR has scrapped a number of SROs related with tax exemptions.

“Those exemption SROs which will be ended on June 2025, let me assure you those will not be extended anymore,” he said.