About 36 ministries and divisions of the government except for the Foreign Ministry have not paid land development tax to the land ministry for years.
As a result, the amount of unpaid taxes of those ministries and divisions stood at around Tk1,690 crore until February this year.
The ministry could collect only Tk102.42 crore in tax while the target was Tk1,792.57 crore.
Of the total 36 ministries and divisions, the environment and railway ministries evaded tax of a staggering TK900 crore while dues of full private sector are only Tk180 crore.
The Land Ministry has started a move to collect outstanding taxes from those ministries shortly after getting instruction from the prime minister. The Finance Ministry too has taken steps to this end.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday asked secretaries, top bureaucrats in the meeting of secretaries held at the secretariat to take measures to collect the unpaid taxes.
Land Ministry’s Senior Secretary Mohammad Safiul Alam on Thursday said the ministry in consultation with the Finance Ministry had already taken steps. It would be solved shortly according to the instruction of the premier.
An inter-ministerial meeting of the officials of land and finance ministries would be held soon to resolve the problem immediately, said the ministry’s Additional Secretary Ibrahim Hossain Khan on Tuesday.
According to the Land Ministry information, it is mandatory for all private and public offices to pay land development taxes to the ministry.
Rejecting the allegation of negligence in collecting taxes Ibrahim Khan said: “We always put pressure on the ministries to pay off their dues. Several letters have also been sent to them but they have never responded.”
