Number of people filing online tax return crosses 1 lakh

The number of people filing tax returns online crossed 100,000 yesterday amidst growing interest among taxpayers to comply with the rules and avoid the hassles of visiting tax offices, according to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) yesterday. 

The tax authority recorded the milestone on offering the scope since November last year, said Mohammad Jahid Hasan, member for tax information management & services of the NBR.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

During last fiscal year, the NBR recorded over 61,000 tax return filings from individual taxpayers.

Taxpayers will be able to pay tax online through e-chalan or mobile financial services while preparing their income tax returns, he said.

"Taxpayers will not need to visit tax offices to submit returns or go to the bank for depositing the taxes. They can do all the formalities online and get acknowledgement receipts instantly," he said, expecting that e-filing of returns would increase severalfold this year.

The tax authority launched the online tax return filing system in 2021 nearly a year after it decided to develop the system scrapping its initial portal, Bangladesh Integrated Tax Administration System (Bitax), on allegations that the initial system was not user-friendly and had failed to attain the desired goals.

Yesterday, the tax authority celebrated the milestone with its chairman, Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem, cutting a cake along with top officials.

Bangladesh has more than 82 lakh registered taxpayers and around 25 lakh filed their income and wealth statements in fiscal year 2021-22 which is very low as according to analysts and taxmen, the number of people with taxable income is much higher in the country.