Taxpayers' service centre opens in Chittagong today

Doulot Akter Mala

The country's first taxpayers' service and information centre will open in port city Chittagong today (Friday) as tax officials have found that taxpayers of the second biggest city are deprived of better services.

The service centre, with all modern facilities, will provide all types of support to the taxpayers including filing tax returns, obtaining Taxpayer's Identification Number (TIN) and other services.

Taxpayers can know about their arrear tax in the service centre, officials said.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) will open a similar taxpayers' service centre in Dhaka this month, said NBR Member (tax administration) Syed Aminul Karim.

He said there is untapped potentiality of raising tax collection from port city Chittagong.

The centres will help hassle-free filing of tax returns by the country's nearly a million taxpayers without coming physically to tax offices, he said.

Time for filing tax returns by individual taxpayers started from July 1 and will continue until September 30.

"It will be a state-of-the-art service centre. No fees or charges will be required for obtaining services in the centre," Mr. Karim said.

Main objective of the service and information centre is to eliminate fear factor and help taxpayers get all types of tax-related services without coming to the tax offices, he said.

The tax department has set up the centre with the financial support of the Department for International Department (DFID), he said.

Retired and fresh income tax officials of the NBR will be posted in the centres to provide free advisory services on tax laws, rules and other tax-related regulations.

Aminul Karim said the success of tax fairs the NBR hosted in September last year proved that taxpayers were willing to pay taxes if they got simple and hassle-free system.

Officials said the NBR will also arrange such tax fairs this year in September prior to expiry of the deadline for submission of individual tax returns.

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