Expansion of tax net: NBR decides to resume door-to-door survey

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has decided to resume its door-to-door survey from this month in a bid to expand tax net.

The decision came following picking up of economic activities and declining trend of the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

Earlier, in a meeting the NBR decided to halt the external or door-to-door survey this year considering the pandemic, and it has been suspended since March.

Later, it has decided to carry out both internal and external surveys, as all activities in the country are running normally.

The NBR's Income Tax Wing has recently instructed its field offices across the country to conduct survey by maintaining health safety guidelines.

Taxmen will visit households, shops, business outlets, service providing entities and other potential sources of new taxpayers in door-to-door survey.

However, the NBR is giving emphasis on internal survey this year to find out new taxpayers and expand tax net.

A senior tax official said the tax department cannot sit idle, as it will have to increase the number of new taxpayers.

"We have not set any target for finding out new taxpayers this year, as taxmen are not sure about response of taxpayers in this situation," he said.

The NBR also instructed its field officials to collect information from secondary sources to find out new taxpayers, he added.

Secondary sources include city corporations, sub-registry offices and Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk). These entities are sources of new taxpayers' information, as they keep records of purchase of land and house property.

Taxmen will compile data of potential taxpayers from there. Through scrutinising information of secondary sources, they will have to issue TIN, open tax file, resolve case and collect revenue from new taxpayers.

The Income Tax Wing also directed its officials to reconstitute door-to-door survey teams. Each of the tax zones will have four survey teams, comprising 10 members each.

Designated representatives of the local administration or Deputy Commissioner's (DC) office, police department, Ansar and college-university students will assist the survey teams as per Section 184E of Income Tax Ordinance 1984.

Officials said the number of new taxpayers will increase significantly this year, as the government has devised an effective fiscal measure to net all TIN-holders.

People having TIN have to submit tax returns from the current fiscal year (FY), 2020-21. Currently, there are around 5.0 million TIN-holders, while 2.2 million submit their tax returns.

Sources said the new taxpayers' survey will find out potential taxpayers without TIN, and motivate them to submit tax returns.

Last year, the NBR targeted to identify 1.2 million new taxpayers through external and internal surveys.

In FY 2018-19, the NBR identified 560,000 taxpayers through tax surveys. Officials said those taxpayers opened income tax files alongside e-TIN registration.