Lodge formal complaints over tax harassment: NBR

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has urged businesspeople to come up with specific allegations if they face any harassment at the hands of tax officials instead of making random complaints.

"If they have any complaint, they have to make it in writing. Then it will be possible to solve them," NBR Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem said.

He made the remarks while speaking at a press conference organised on the occasion of International Customs Day-2022 at the revenue building in Dhaka's Segunbagicha.

At a recent meeting of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), district level businesspeople brought allegations of harassment against VAT and income tax officials.

Muneem said businesspeople raised complaints in case of releasing imported goods, machinery and other products from the customs house as well but the complaints were not always correct.

"The revenue authorities will take action if we receive any specific allegation of harassment against any customs officials. Just talking about allegations will not solve them."

He advised businessmen to come to the NBR instead of complaining to the FBCCI.

Bangladesh observes International Customs Day today as a member country of the World Customs Organisation with the theme of "Scaling up Customs Digital Transformation by Embracing a Data Culture and Building a Data Ecosystem".

Muneem said the NBR was trying to improve the ASYCUDA system that will eliminate some of the problems at the import stage.

ASYCUDA is a computerised customs management system that covers most foreign trade procedures. It handles manifests and customs declarations, accounting procedures, and transit and suspense procedures.

It also generates trade data that can be used for statistical economic analysis.

Customs collected Tk 77,150 crore for the government in duties in the last fiscal year. The receipts stood at Tk 41,194 crore as of December in the current fiscal year, 22.44 per cent, year-on-year.

Muneem said after the graduation of the country from the group of the least-developed countries, the NBR would compensate the decrease in revenue from customs duty with value-added tax (VAT) and income tax.

"We are working on it and have kept in mind the problems we might face."