Written by The Banking Post
National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan has called on tax officials to strike a balance between trade facilitation and strict enforcement of laws to achieve this year’s revenue targets.
Speaking at review meetings on revenue collection for July, the NBR chief warned that importers and exporters must not face harassment through unnecessary BIN locks. “Honest and compliant businesses cannot be harmed by arbitrary restrictions,” he said, instructing customs houses to explain every BIN lock and the amount of tax collected from such actions.
He urged VAT officials to focus on widening the tax net rather than squeezing existing payers. “It is not appropriate to put extra pressure on those who pay VAT properly. Non-payers and evaders must be brought under the law and face exemplary punishment,” he said.
The chairman directed officials to make VAT registration mandatory for all eligible businesses and ensure all bond-related activities move fully online within a month. Each service must have a fixed time limit, and officers failing to deliver should be held accountable. Misuse of bond facilities, whether by importers or revenue officials, will lead to immediate legal action, he added.
To ease congestion at ports, he instructed customs houses to speed up auctions of containers stuck for long periods, with a target of clearing them by December 2025.
On income tax, the NBR chief emphasised stronger support for taxpayers in filing e-returns and ordered quick integration of the eTIN and eTDS systems. He also called for prompt settlement of pending audit cases, faster return processing, and targeted action against non-filers.
Tax regions were told to intensify intelligence operations to uncover evasion and to report monthly on steps taken against non-filers, tax evasion, and audit progress. Monitoring members of NBR will also meet commissioners weekly and brief the chairman directly on their findings.
All commissioners of Customs, VAT and Income Tax divisions joined the discussions and pledged to ramp up efforts to raise the tax-to-GDP ratio by boosting revenue collection.
