The National Board of Revenue (NBR), handicapped by shortage of manpower, has decided to engage university students to find out the holders of taxpayer's identification number (TIN) missing the November 12 tax returns filing deadline. The board said nearly 1.5 million TIN holders out of 2.2 million did not file tax return by the specified time.

The board is set to appoint a total of 400 university students across the country to check the income tax files of defaulters. "It is necessary to find out the taxpayers by examining the existing tax files of TIN holders as only one-third of them file tax returns every year," said a senior income tax official. "We have been facing difficulties to check those files as income tax department is facing acute manpower shortage for long," he said. It is one of the strategies of NBR to raise the number of taxpayers for improving the country's poor tax-GDP ratio, the official said. In the current fiscal, the revenue board received 0.75 million tax returns involving Tk 8.60 billion from individual taxpayers by the deadline.

The NBR received 0.65 million tax returns worth Tk 6.23 billion by the deadline (November 12, 2008) previous year, according to official data. Of the taxpayers 0.15 million are government employees, who get refund of their paid income tax from finance ministry. However, revenues from individual income taxes increased to Tk 9.72 billion and the tax returns to 0.74 million until June 30, 2009. "This year, the board received 36 per cent higher tax from individual taxpayers by the deadline compared to previous year, which is a great achievement of the income tax department," the income tax official said.

-Financial Express