The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday urged the National board of Revenue to formulate a tax structure that would be friendly to the cottage, micro, small and medium enterprise businesses.
Ashraf Ahmed, president of the DCCI, called on NBR chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan on the day at the NBR office at Agargaon in the capital Dhaka.
In the meeting, Ashraf said that complicated tax management system hindered the businesses of CMSMEs, and suggested easing and formulating a CMSME-friendly tax structure.
He said, 鈥楾he current law imposes an additional tax burden on business owners if they cannot offset their business losses with income from other sources within the same venture.鈥�
To alleviate this issue, Ashraf recommended restoring a provision similar to Section 37 of the Income Tax Ordinance 1984.
The DCCI president also requested for the income tax system to be brought under the automated system with the aim of simplifying tax payment and all tax-related matters.
The chamber said that if businesses could not adjust the tax deducted at source with their current advance income tax payments, the authorities could introduce a provision to allow them to carry forward one tax to the next, along with their income tax.
The DCCI said that it would particularly benefit CMSMEs that have had tax deducted from their payments for goods and services.
Currently, businesses face fines of up to 400 per cent if they use the wrong HS code, even if the product description is correct. This situation often leads to unnecessary harassment.
To prevent this, the DCCI suggested amending a section concerned with this of the Customs Act 2023, and said that the amendment would let businesses correct the HS code or product description during the assessment stage and withdraw their goods declaration without penalty.
Abdur Rahman said that only 5 per cent of the total populations paid taxes, whereas in India the rate was 23 per cent.
鈥楢 large section of people is out of the tax net, which increases the pressure on the existing tax payers,鈥� the NBR chairman said.
鈥楾he NBR will work on a priority basis to expand the tax net in the next six months,鈥� he said.
He mentioned that the multiple layers of taxes at different stages could cause the overall corporate tax rate to rise. The NBR will take this into consideration, he said.
He stated that the tax collection target would not be lowered, but tax rates would be adjusted to improve revenue management.
The NBR chairman urged businesses to use cashless systems and banking channels to prevent tax evasion.
DCCI senior vice-president Malik Talha Ismail Bari, among others, was present on the occasion.
