Staff Correspondent:

National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Abdur Rahman Khan has said one million out of 1.5 million taxpayers have submitted zero returns online in the ongoing fiscal year.

This means that these one million taxpayers paid no taxes against their declared annual income as it fell below the tax-free income threshold.

Abdur Rahman made the revelation at a pre-budget discussion in the Rajashwa Bhaban, or Revenue Building, in Agargaon on Monday while responding to a proposal to raise the ceiling for tax-free income.

During the session, ERF President Daulat Akhtar Mala proposed increasing the tax exemption ceiling for individual taxpayers from Tk 350,000 to 500,000 in line with inflation.

The NBR chairman acknowledged that while the demand was not “unreasonable”, it presented some challenges.