The National Board of Revenue (NBR) plans to go tough against tax-evading companies especially against the companies which have submitted fake audit reports to conceal their real income and expenditures.
Sources said the department concerned of the NBR has started working to scrutinize the tax returns they have submitted for the current fiscal year 2020-21 (FY21).
The NBR has taken the move to increase tax-revenue collection as it has a collection target of Tk 1, 41, 000 crore during the first six months of the fiscal year but there is a collection shortfall of Tk 32, 754 crore.
In December 2020, the NBR collected Tk 21, 377 crore revenue against its target of Tk 28, 265 crore.
A high-powered task force of the NBR has found that a section of registered companies sought loans from banks and purchased assets at different times but they did not give details in their tax returns, said a NBR official preferring anonymity.
Currently, around 37,000 out of 78,000 TIN (taxpayer identification number) holding companies submit tax returns to the NBR. But the task force recently identified the existence of some 176,000 firms that are duly registered with Register of Joint Stock Companies (RJSC), said the NBR official dealing with the matter.
Of 176, 000 firms 89 percent have obtained registration between 1991 and 2020 and these companies are still in operation.
"These tax-evading companies will gradually be brought under the tax net," said the official.
He said TIN registration and submission of returns are mandatory for all companies as per the income tax ordinance to run business activities.
"These companies might use fake TINs to run their operations," he added.
The official said the NBR will take help of the RJSC and the Institute of Charted Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) to identify these companies.
In July last year, a seven-member task force was formed by the central intelligence cell (CIC) of the NBR to bring all registered public and private limited companies under the tax net.
The task force was also given responsibility to detect fake TIN-holding companies to plug tax evasion.
In a previous study of the NBR it was found that more than 56 per cent of the firms did not have TINs and over 55per cent of the TIN-holding companies do not pay income tax.
More than 50per cent firms, which submitted income tax returns, provided fake reports in the last fiscal year (FY21).