National Board of Revenue (NBR) is likely to issue further clarification or a more specific guideline soon to make its position clear on the proposed monthly house rent payment over Tk25,000 through banking channel.
The regulatory board has already issued a rule, last week, asking the house owners to collect their house rents through banking channel in separate bank accounts, only to be used for the rent purposes, said NBR officials.
According to the rule, any person having ownership of any property used for commercial or residential purposes have to collect his or her monthly rent over Tk25,000 through a separate bank account in any scheduled bank.
As the NBR is facing some questions on the newly introduced system and, therefore, it is likely to issue a guideline shortly, clearing its rules issued earlier.
“We are facing some queries like whether the tenants will have to pay their rents through cheques or they will pay the rent as cash and the landlords will later deposit the amount to specific bank account,” said a high official of NBR.
“There are also queries as to what would be the measures if the tenants pay their rents in cash as usual while the landlords also do not deposit the amount to the bank account,” said a NBR high official.
He also said the NBR is likely to issue a guideline soon to clarify the measures and the system in brief.
However, as per the issued rule, the house owners have to maintain a separate register and record regarding the details of the house rents.
The landlords have been asked to record the names and addresses of the tenants, details of the deed and other information related to this issues with the aforesaid register, officials added.
From now on, the NBR will impose penalty on the house owners at the rate of 50% of taxes payable on incomes derived from the house property or Tk5,000, whichever is higher, for not transacting the house-rent through banks, according to the finance bill 2014.
The government has made mandatory payment system of the house rents through banking channel to ensure transparency in the house rent collection and to bring more people under tax net while prohibiting the practice of dodging tax on earnings from rental property.
“We have identified around 162,000 houses and house-owners who could not give us any details about their source of funds to build their respective houses,’’ said NBR officials.