DHAKA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A week-long tax fair began on Thursday in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka and elsewhere in the country to facilitate taxpayers to pay their taxes and make the government earn more revenues.
Bangladeshi Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal inaugurated the tax fair in Dhaka organized by the country's National Board of Revenue (NBR). Apart from Dhaka, NBR also organized the show in all the divisional headquarters, all district towns and many important sub-districts between Nov. 14 and Nov. 20 to help taxpayers submit returns and complete related formalities without any hassle.
The fair in Dhaka witnessed a mad rush of thousands of taxpayers at its beginning on Thursday morning. 2019 marks the 10th year for the tax fair since its inception in 2010. The fair gained huge popularity as it gives an opportunity to people to submit income tax returns within a short time and without visiting any tax offices.
NBR Chairman Md Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan expressed the hope that the number of the country's tax returnees will increase to about 3 million in the current fiscal year 2019-20 (July 2019-June 2020) from about 2.2 in in the previous 2018-19 fiscal year.
Last year, officials said, the fair brought to the state coffers a record 24.68 billion taka, which was about 11 percent higher than the amount collected from the fair in the previous year. "Our plan is to bring more people under tax umbrella by providing hassle-free service at the fair," Bhuiyan said.
And he expressed the hope that "the gathering of taxpayers in this year's show will help us collect 30 billion taka income tax." (1 U.S. dollar equals to about 84 taka)
