Prime Minister Tarique Rahman called for a transformation of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) into a trusted and people-friendly institution. Speaking at the Revenue Conference 2026, organized by the NBR, he stressed the importance of making tax management and collection procedures simple, corruption-free, and harassment-free. The goal is to create an environment where people feel comfortable paying taxes voluntarily.
'Tax management and collection procedures must be simple, corruption- and harassment-free so that people feel comfortable paying taxes voluntarily,' Rahman said. He added that repeatedly increasing the tax burden on the same taxpayers is not a sustainable way to increase revenue. Instead, the focus should be on identifying people who are able to pay taxes and bringing them under the tax net through proper measures.
The Prime Minister highlighted the necessity of building a digitally modern, data-driven tax administration. He described Value Added Tax (VAT) as an important source of revenue in a modern economy and stressed that complexities in VAT administration must not hamper business and trade. Rahman emphasized that customs, VAT, or tax collection should not be a matter of coercion but rather a relationship of trust and confidence between taxpayers and the revenue administration.
Addressing revenue officials, Rahman urged them to make the NBR a more trustworthy and reliable institution. He noted that the success of the government's development plan largely depends on the efficiency of the NBR. The Prime Minister also referred to the past fascist regime, stating that the NBR, like other state institutions, had been affected by arbitrary revenue collection and discriminatory treatment. He called for a bounce back in a fascism-free Bangladesh by transforming the NBR into a people-friendly system.
Rahman acknowledged the rapid changes in the global economy and the need for revenue officials to acquire multidimensional skills. He emphasized the importance of understanding digital economy, e-commerce, transfer pricing, international taxation, trade and financial crimes, money laundering, and artificial intelligence. The Prime Minister called for reducing dependence on existing regular taxpayers and strengthening the trust relationship between taxpayers and the revenue administration.
