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National Board of Revenue (NBR) an organ of the Ministry of Finance. It lies at the apex of the whole revenue organisation of the government and is responsible for the administration of almost all the direct and indirect taxes. The main direct taxes are the income tax, wealth tax (collected as a surcharge of income tax since assessment year 1999-2000) and gift tax, while the indirect taxes are the customs duty, excise duty, value added tax (VAT), turnover tax, supplementary duty and infrastructure development surcharge. Estimates for the period between 1990-2000 showed that on average, the NBR is responsible for collection of about 93% of total tax revenue and about 81% of the total revenue of the government in a year. The taxes collected by organs other than the NBR are narcotics duty, land revenue, sale of non-judicial stamp, registration and motor vehicles tax. In addition to collection of taxes, NBR plays a key role in formulation and implementation of the fiscal policy of the government. NBR was constituted in 1972 under the National Board of Revenue Order 1972, which repealed and replaced the Central Board of Revenue Act 1924. The secretary of the Internal Resources Division of the Ministry of Finance is the ex-officio chairman of the Board. The chairman is assisted by four members of the customs, excise and VAT cadre and four members of the income tax cadre. The members of NBR hold the rank of additional secretary. There are 367 posts under the organisation structure of the Board. Of them 70 are class-I officers, and 193 are class-III and 109 are class-IV employees. There are 38 directorates under the control of the Board and 22 of them are related with direct tax administration, 15 with indirect tax administration and 1 with the complaints (investigation) on both direct and indirect taxes. NBR performs the same functions and is vested with the same powers and duties as those of the former Central Board of Revenue. The main functions of NBR are: (1) collecting direct and indirect taxes; (2) formulating and dealing with policy matters including continuous re-appraisal of tax policies and tax laws; (3) controlling and supervising direct and indirect tax administration; (4) helping in formulating tax policy and processing legislation, preparing tax revenue budget, negotiating agreements relating to tax, donations, debts and general cooperation with foreign governments and international agencies, and also vetting tax clauses of agreements with foreign governments, agencies or institutions; (5) performing all the functions and exercising the powers vested in the government by various tax laws, such as disposing of revision application under the customs, excise and VAT laws, and dealing with exemptions from various taxes; and (6) helping in preventing smuggling, implementing import and export policies, and formulating policies for domestic industrialisation or encouraging foreign direct investment. In its secretariat functions, NBR participates in inter-ministerial deliberations on all economic policies having a taxation bearing. Till 1995, it was the highest appellate authority on matters of assessments of customs duty. A customs, excise and vat appellate tribunal was established in 1995 under the Finance Act 1995 to deal with appeal cases relating to customs, excises and VAT. [Swapan Kumar Bala]
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