Discussants have recommended the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to launch massive campaigns through organising workshops, seminars, and views exchange meetings to encourage taxpayers for quick disposal of cases through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).
“It would benefit both the taxpayers and taxmen if the tax related cases were resolved through ADR instead of pending them at courts for years,” they said.
To further boost up the revenue collection, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) held a meeting with the facilitators of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) at its headquarters the capital yesterday for faster settlement of the pending cases. The NBR Chairman Md Nojibur Rahman chaired the meeting.
Currently, hundreds of cases are pending at different courts involving about Tk28,000 crore from all the three wings of NBR- income tax, customs duties, and value added tax (VAT).
The facilitators including former adviser to the caretaker government Tapan Chowdhury, former NBR member Ali Ahmed, ACI Group Managing Director Anis Ud Dowla, FBCCI Director Manzur Ahmed placed a number of recommendations to the NBR chairman for further facilitating the ADR process.
Addressing the meeting, the NBR chairman instructed all field level commissioners to expedite the ADR process.
The NBR has taken up the move to discuss about the ADR issue with stakeholders in the wake of the ongoing political turmoil, that has put extra pressures on NBR in collecting the large amount of stuck up revenue.
The BNP-led alliance has been observing non-stop countrywide blockade since January 6 that has hampered business, creating an unwanted situation for NBR to meet the revenue target set for the current fiscal year.
The taxmen in 2012 introduced ADR, a mechanism to resolve the tax-related disputes and ensure a win-win situation for both the taxmen and taxpayers. However, the mechanism is yet to get momentum as only a few taxpayers has adopted it to resolve cases, due to lack of awareness among taxpayers.
According to the system, a panel of facilitators will assist both taxpayers and revenue officials to resolve disputes within two months of filing applications.
During the last three years, only 743 cases were referred to NBR for settlement through ADR, according to NBR records.
The NBR has recently instructed all its field offices to motivate taxpayers, mainly businesses to adopt the process. It also published a number of advertisements in the newspapers to aware the people on the new mechanism.
Top officials from NBR including its members Begum Jahan Ara Siddique, Kalipada Halder, and Khandker Aminur Rahman also attended the meeting, among others.
