Urgency in NBR for expeditious settlement of revenue cases

FE Report

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is stepping up its efforts to quickly dispose of 16,372 revenue-related cases that have remained pending in courts for years, its chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid said Saturday.

"Revenue collection by the NBR is being hampered due to huge backlog of revenue-related cases in different courts of the country," he told reporters after attending a meeting with officials from the Attorney General (AG) office at his office at Segunbagicha in the city.

The NBR arranged the meeting with the AG officials to discuss the pending cases and find ways to quickly dispose them of.

Mr Mazid put the number of pending cases at about 16,372 involving the revenue worth over Tk 65.51 billion.

Of them, some 12,769 are customs-related cases involving Tk 17.49 billion, 2,023 value added tax-related cases over Tk 31.12 billion and 1,580 are income tax-related cases over Tk 17 billion, he said.

At the meeting, the NBR chairman said the government wants to see quick disposal of the pending cases. "We have large amount of money unrealised due to these cases," he said.

"Many bigwigs remain protected from prosecution through loopholes in the law that deprived the government of huge amount of revenue. The government will be able to increase its revenue earning if those pending cases are resolved," said Mazid.

He sought assistance from the attorney general's office to realise the revenue.

Former AG Mahmudul Islam, who was present at the meeting, said the pending cases might see results if the NBR efforts in this regard get a momentum.

Attributing the huge pending cases to the 'negligence' of the NBR officials, he said: "The NBR officials cannot provide necessary document in due time when the AG office asks for."

Mazid informed the NBR is arranging a 5-day training programme for its officials on different aspects of law, which is starting from March 29.

"The AG will join the training programme to provide necessary information and make the NBR officials familiar with various issues, which will help our officials a lot," the country's top taxman said.

He urged the AG officials to cooperate with the NBR in having the pending cases disposed of quickly.

NBR collected Tk 266.95 billion in tax revenue during the July-January period of the current fiscal year compared to nearly Tk 237.48 billion of the corresponding period of fiscal 2007-2008.