An advanced audit training for the income tax officials of the National Board of Revenue started today.

The six-day training funded by the European Union consists of five different courses, the NBR said in a statement.

The training was organised for NBR's income tax officials who are already well experienced in the role of auditing large, complex corporate houses and industries, according to the statement.

In recent years, audits have been developed as a very useful tool by the tax administration to improve compliance and enhance collections, NBR Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmutal Muneem said at the programme.

"The tax administration today is fully reliant on reliable and robust systems. NBR has achieved significant progress on revenue collection and we need to be going forward with greater in-house capabilities to contribute higher on that."

"But due to lack of adequate manpower and other resources, audit processes cannot cover the entire taxpayer population. So, it has become necessary to develop the capacity of our own officials for better results with available resources," he said.

These advance audit courses will improve the ability of the tax officials to conduct audit activities more efficiently and will increase revenue yield from audits, Muneem said.

NBR Member Tax Administration and HRM Shaheen Akhter said the courses will meet the specific needs of the officials to perform more efficiently.

NBR Member and TA Focal Point Jahid Hasan said the training would address financial audit, tax audit within computerised accounting environments, and specific focus on conducting tax audits within the banking, insurance and telco industries in Bangladesh.

The trainings would be presented by the resource persons specialised on relevant fields, Hasan said.

Jurate Smalskyte Melville, guest of honour and acting head of the cooperation of the Delegation of the European Union in Bangladesh, also spoke.