Many government and private institutions as well as some individuals have not been paying holding tax to Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) in the last two decades.

As per the Municipal Corporation Taxation rules, 1986, holding tax is the tax on building or land, lighting rate and conservancy rate.

DSCC has issued letters to the defaulters numerous times for paying the dues but they the dues are yet to be paid, officials said.

Talking to the Daily Sun, DSCC Chief Executive Officer Farid Ahmed said, “We have collected holding tax from some institutions which were not paying holding tax since 1960.”

He said, “We are trying our best to collect the tax since the new mayor took charge in 2020, and around 98 per cent of the dues have already been collected from the defaulters.”

“But some organisations are yet to pay their tax or respond to our requests,” he added.

Expressing disappointment, he also said, “If anyone does not pay holding tax we cannot punish them due to legal bar. We have to collect the dues following the existing laws,” he added.

Recently, the DSCC started conducting mobile courts on some of the establishments for collecting the dues.

DSCC has conducted a mobile court drive at Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) recently as it is not paying the holding tax since FY 2005-06. BFF owes Tk 14.7 million in holding tax.

According to an estimate of DSCC, Tk 384 million is still unpaid by some 21 major government and non-government organizations and individuals since 2001.

Bangladesh Muktijoddha Kalyan Trust owes Tk 65.7 million as it has not been paying the tax since FY 2001-2002. Officers’ Club at Shahid Mansur Ali Sarani is not paying holding tax of Tk 23.1 million incurred since FY 2005-06.

Tk 53.3 million is unpaid by the Director-General of Bangladesh Border Guard and Tk 21.2 million by BGB Welfare Trust as the two bodies are not paying the tax since 2016-17 and 2018-19 respectively.

Division Engineer-3 of Bangladesh Railway at Kamalapur is also not paying the tax since the 2014-15 fiscal year, accumulating their total dues to Tk 24.6 million.  Land Administration Training Centre, Justice Amin Ahmed Trust, Messrs Karim Jute Mills Limited and Sultana Kamal Krira Complex are also among major defaulters of holding tax.

Among the individuals, Rashida Begum from Mirpur road, Md Abul Kalam Azad from 55 Purana Paltan road, Duli Chand from Imamganj lane, Mujibur Rahman Khan from Moulvibazar Road owe Tk 10.4 million, 3.9 million, 2.9 million, 12.7 million respectively in holding tax.