The government has set a target to bring the total number of taxpayers to ten million, as soon as possible, in a bid to boost revenue collection.
“There are 40 million people included in the middle-income group. However, the number of taxpayers is only 2.1-2.2 million. We will increase the number of taxpayers to 10 million—at the earliest possible time—and as part of the ongoing process, efforts to bring the rest of the citizens under the tax net will continue,” Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said while reading out his budget speech for FY2019-20 at the parliament on Thursday.
The minister—who is placing his first national budget proposal—admitted that a culture has formed, over a long period of time, that only those who pay taxes to the government exchequer continue to do so every year while others, despite having a taxable income, refrain from including themselves in the tax net to evade paying taxes.
“We also want to get out of this bad culture. All eligible taxpayers will be brought under the tax net,” he said in his budget speech.
