Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam has said that government employees won’t have to submit separate wealth statement while filing income tax returns from now on. The secretary said this during a press briefing after a meeting of the Secretaries at the Secretariat on Sunday. “The one-page wealth statement that government employees have to submit to the NBR while filing income tax return isn’t necessary anymore. From now on, the government officials will submit the statement to the Ministry of Public Administration,” said Anwarul. Read more: Tax lawyers seek 2 months more for filing income tax returns He added that the National Board of Revenue (NBR) hasn't expressed any objection to the new directive. “I sat with NBR officials and the Secretary of the Public Administration Ministry to discuss the issue and all of us have agreed on the new measure. A circular will be published soon in this regard and after that, the one-page wealth statement that was previously submitted to NBR will be given to the Ministry,” Anwarul added. According to the Government Servants (Conduct) Rules 1979, government officials are bound to submit wealth statements and take permission for buying or selling properties after every five years. But this rule has been neglected for long, and the government hasn't tried to implement it either. Read more: Govt struggles to lift tax-GDP ratio to double digits On June 24, 2021, the Ministry of Public Administration sent letters to all the ministries and their secretaries to immediately apply this rule on all the government employees following a directive from the Prime Minister herself. Although the ministries are trying to make the rule effective, government officials are yet to respond.

The government has made it mandatory to show proof of income tax returns to get 40 types of services, said the new income tax guidelines for the fiscal year 2022-23. An income tax return is a means of presenting a taxpayer's annual income, expenditure and wealth information to the income tax authorities in a prescribed form. According to the Income Tax Act, the income tax return has to be filed in the prescribed form of the National Board of Revenue (NBR). Read: Nagad, Swisscontact team up to enhance financial inclusion of RMG workers “If the annual income of an individual-taxpayer is more than Tk3 lakh, if the income of a person of the third gender, women and 65 years and above is more than Tk3.5 lakh, if the income of a gazetted war casualty freedom fighter taxpayer is more than Tk4.75 lakh and if the income of the disabled taxpayer is more than Tk4.5 lakh, it is mandatory to submit his return,” said in the guidelines. Apart from this, there are many other reasons that make it mandatory for a person to file a return. It is not only necessary to submit returns from the current financial year, but to get various government services, proof of return submission is also required.