The first ever online tax payment service is going to start on 26 May, with the slogan ‘Pay online, anytime anywhere.’
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the online tax payment system.

A tripartite agreement will be signed this week between NBR, Sonali Bank and Information Technology Consultant Limited (ITCL), a wing of Q-cash, said the tax officials at an introductory meeting of the online tax payment at a city hotel Wednesday.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to introduce the e-payment system in a bid to facilitate taxpayers to pay taxes, including income tax, VAT and customs duty online from any part of the world any time.

NBR, Bangladesh Bank, Sonali Bank and Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh will jointly coordinate the system while Q-cash will be processor of the whole system to deposit the money from account of taxpayers to public exchequer.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is financing the launching of online tax payment and tax return system in line with NBR’s goal to digitise the entire revenue collection process to put an end to hassles of the taxpayers.

Tax payers won’t need to pay any additional cost for the service, the officials said. They won’t need to stand in a long queue once the e-payment system is introduced, they added.

In this regard, a total of 26 banks have been selected for online tax payment.
The banks include Bank Asia, Basic Bank, Bangladesh Commerce Bank, Eastern Bank, IFIC Bank, ICB Islamic Bank, Janata Bank, Jamuna Bank, Mercantile Bank and Mutual Trust Bank.

The other banks are National Bank, NCC Bank, Pubali Bank, Shahjalal Islami Bank, Social Islami Bank, Standard Bank, State Bank of India and The City Bank.

Trust Bank, Uttara Bank, Exim Bank, Citibank NA, Dhaka Bank, Southeast Bank, United Commercial Bank and Brac Bank are also in the selection list.

Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC and Dutch-Bangla Bank will be included in the process within a short time, the sources said.

Large taxpayers, both individual and corporate, will come under the e-payment of tax in the first phase, sources said, adding that they would be able to pay tax through debit, credit or VISA card.

Earlier, NBR introduced online tax return system in July 2009, for large taxpayers -- both individual and corporate in different zones.

But, the online tax return submission was not so popular among the taxpayers due to absence of e-payment facilities. Only a handful of taxpayers availed the facilities of online tax return submission.

Once the system is successfully implemented, revenue collection will increase substantially by curbing anomalies and checking evasion of tax, NBR officials hoped.

The Daily Sun/ Bangladesh/ 12th May 2012