NBR to facilitate e-payment of large tax thru banks [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

NBR to facilitate e-payment of large tax thru banks

Local July 30, 2015

The National Board of Revenue is going to introduce a new e-payment software, replacing the old one to facilitate large taxpayers to pay any amount of tax online through their bank accounts, officials said.
They said the new and improved e-payment system would be ready soon after completion of hosting the software at the Bangladesh Computer Council data centre.
Taxpayers will be able to pay any amount of income tax, value-added tax and customs duty online sitting at home or office from their bank accounts, a senior NBR official involved with the process told New Age on Monday.
The new software will replace the existing electronic tax payment system which has various limitations including lack of facility to transfer taxes directly from the taxpayers’ bank accounts, he said.
Currently, the taxpayers having accounts in 26 banks linked with the Q-cash network can pay only a small amount of taxes using the debit and credit cards of the banks or the prepaid cards of Sonali Bank through the NBR-Sonali Bank e-payment system.
The system does not support paying big amount of taxes through account to account transactions.
In absence of money transfer facility from bank accounts, the corporate taxpayers have kept themselves away from the e-payment system.
Taxpayers, in general, also showed lukewarm response to the system as they had to possess cards of the selected banks or fund credited to the Sonali Bank prepaid cards.
Officials said only a small number of individual taxpayers paid very negligible amount of taxes, mainly income taxes, online in the last three years since the inception of the system in May 2012.
Though there is no maximum limit of paying taxes using cards, small taxpayers only availed the facility in the last three years, they said.
The highest payment (Tk 2 lakh) through the system was made by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, while inaugurating the system, they added.
Till June 2014, the revenue board got around Tk 6 crore through the system.
In the fiscal year 2013-2014, the total revenue collection was Tk 1.20 lakh crore.
The NBR has already signed agreements with Standard Chartered Bank and Citibank to facilitate their corporate clients to pay taxes online through bank accounts.
The revenue board will hold meetings with senior officials of other commercial banks as soon as possible to sensitise them to the system.
‘We will request them to prepare their systems by the next two to three months so that clients of the banks can pay taxes in any amount through their bank accounts,’ another NBR official said.
The system may be launched within the next two or three months after completing all necessary preparations including setting up of server at the BCC, he said.
International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group is providing technical and financial assistance under the Bangladesh Investment Climate Fund to modernise the system.
Officials of the revenue board, however, said that BICF had decided to handover the e-payment system to the revenue board by September but the developer of the software was yet to provide IT officials of the NBR with the technical know-how of the software.
They said that IT officials of the NBR did not know the technical and functional aspects of the software as the BICF-appointed software developer, DataSoft, did not involve NBR officials with the software development process.
Technology transfer is most important issue in such a situation and it will be very difficult for the revenue board to ensure smooth function of the system without technology transfer, they added.
In this context, the revenue board may request the BICF to extend the management and maintenance tenure of the software two years more and involve six IT officials of the income tax, VAT and customs wings of the NBR with the process.