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Income tax return submission by individual taxpayers posted a 14 per cent rise this year, mostly contributed by salaried taxpayers.
Until Sunday, tax offices received some 1.7 million tax returns and about 315,105 'time petitions' from the individual taxpayers.
Time petition means application submitted by the taxpayers seeking additional time to submit their tax returns as deadline passed.
November 30 is the Tax Day and the deadline for submission of income tax returns by the individual taxpayers.
But the tax-collecting authority received returns until December 02 as November 30 and December 01 were public holidays.
Last year, the number of tax returns was about 1.5 million and time petitions 356,756.
Income tax collection against the tax returns increased by 27 per cent until the deadline this year compared to that of the last year.
Md Ziauddin Mahmood, income tax member (tax administration and human resource management) of the National Board of Revenue (NBR), revealed these while talking to the FE on Monday.
He said the number of income tax returns, including 'time petitions', increased to above 2.0 million this year due to the relentless efforts of the taxmen.
"We have collected some Tk 52.48 billion income taxes against the returns, which was Tk 41.35 billion last year," he said.
The number of E-TIN (electronic taxpayers identification number) holders increased to 3.8 million. Some 587,098 new taxpayers obtained the tax registration number this year.
The number of tax returns would be increased to 2.2 million this year as there are some obligatory measures for organisations in the income tax law, he said.
A number of organisations will have to submit acknowledgement receipts against tax returns submission of their employees to the taxmen, he said.
Mr Mahmood said around 60 per cent of the tax returns were submitted by the salaried persons.
There is a large portion of informal economy that is yet to come under tax net, he added.
A Deputy Commissioner of Taxes, preferring anonymity, said a large number of businessmen avoid income tax return submission every year.
"Taxmen cannot trace them easily like the salaried persons," he said.
He said the automation of the tax department is needed to bring the people having taxable income under tax net.
The NBR collected Tk 24.68 billion income taxes and received 487, 573 tax returns in the week-long tax-fairs across the country, held from November 13 to 19, 2018.
According to the income tax ordinance-1984, taxpayers who missed the deadline, will have to pay 2.0 per cent penal tax in addition to their payable tax. The penal tax is also applicable to those who submitted time petitions.