DCC North outstanding holding tax Tk 248cr

The amount of the outstanding holding tax of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) now stands at Tk 248 crore, hampering its regular functioning, officials said.They said the defaulters include government and private holdings under DNCC’s five tax zones—Zone-1 (Uttara), Zone-2 (Mirpur), Zone-3 (Gulshan), Zone-4 (Mirpur) and Zone-5 (Karwan Bazar).
Contacted, DNCC chief revenue officer Md Golam Mostafa Khan said taxes to the tune of Tk 248 crore remain unpaid by many government as well as private holdings for the last several years despite issuance of notices several times.
DNCC sources said United Hospitals, a privately-owned hospital situated at Gulshan (Zone-3), tops the list of the defaulters with an unpaid Tk 23,17,21,382.
Over 2,200 shop owners at Bashundhara City, a private multidimensional high-rise shopping mall, situated at Karwan Bazar (Zone 5), are the second biggest defaulters with Tk 22 crore unpaid, followed by Messrs Chameli Glass (Tejgaon, Zone 5) Tk 4,40,16,900.
Messrs Metal Products Tk 2,45,27,675 and Mujibur Rahman, an individual, Tk 81,49,280, are the fourth and fifth top defaulters respectively.
Golam Mostafa said the number of holdings under the five tax zones of the northern part of the recently-bifurcated Dhaka City Corporation is 148,154, of which 680 are owned by the government. The 680 holdings under different ministries, departments and government establishments owe the DNCC Tk 25,54,39,900.58, he informed.
Public Works Department under the Works Ministry (310 holdings), Post and Telecommunications Ministry (180), Local Government Department under the LGRD Ministry (62) and Education Ministry (48) are the top defaulters of the government, he said.
Contacted, Abu Alam Md Shahin Khan, Secretary, Local Government Division, Ministry of LGRD and Cooperatives, said all the defaulters have been issued with notices on a number of occasions but they are not paying their outstanding taxes.
Chief Revenue Officer Golam Mostafa said the DNCC sets the annual tax realisation target from the government and the private holdings at Tk 360 crore on an average and the target has been fixed at Tk 288 crore for the 2012-2013 fiscal year but Tk 112.19 crore has been realised in the last eight months (July 2012-February 2013), leaving Tk 176 crore unrealised with only three-and-half-months remaining in the fiscal.
Of the Tk 248 crore unpaid taxes, he said, the chances of realising Tk 82,09,24,509.21 have become thin because of various legal hassles as cases filed by the defaulters remained pending with different courts.
DNCC deputy chief revenue officer Md Mohsin Ali told UNB that both the government and the private holdings that have not been paying taxes for the last several years or paying irregularly have been issued with notices more than once and most of them served with ultimatums but they are not responding.
Besides, he continued, there has been mikings for several times in the five zones asking the defaulters to pay the unpaid taxes within a deadline set by the DNCC, and even leaflets were distributed among them but all the steps have gone unheeded.
Both, Mohsin and Golam Mostafa said they are weighing up ways to get tough on the defaulters. “Even legal action can be initiated against some of them with the view to realizing the long overdue revenue from them,” he said.

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