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Dhaka, July 16, 2025 — Bangladesh’s National Board of Revenue (NBR) has rolled out a temporary digital audit drive, picking 15,494 individual income tax returns for scrutiny in the 2023–24 fiscal year. The move leverages a fully automated random-selection process that covers 0.5% of returns in each tax circle.

To prevent repetitive audits, the NBR excluded any taxpayer whose return was audited in the past two years. This stopgap measure will stay in place until the board completes data entry for all offline paper returns and launches its Risk-Based Audit Selection Criterion.

Highlights

• Scope 15,494 returns—0.5% of filings in each tax circle—selected via random digital draw.
• Fairness Safeguard Returns audited in 2021–22 and 2022–23 are excluded from the current round.
• Pending Digitization Full automation awaits the conversion of all paper returns into the central database.
• Future Targeting Risk-based system will replace random draws, aiming for sharper revenue recovery.

While the randomized approach guarantees impartiality and transparency, NBR officials acknowledge it may miss higher-risk cases. Once the risk-based model is fully operational, the board expects to enhance audit effectiveness, drive up compliance, and safeguard revenue collection.