The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has now set its sight on the country's cattle markets ahead of Eid-ul-Azha as part of its intensified drive against tax evaders.

The revenue board thinks that the well-off people go for high-priced sacrificial animals in their efforts to get social attention.

“We want to avail of this chance to net more tax dodgers,” NBR Chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid told the news agency over phone on Thursday.

The NBR also apprehended that the candidates, who are contesting the December 29 elections, would go for expensive sacrificial animals for this Eid-ul-Azha as the Eid is going to be celebrated just over two weeks before the general election. The upazila elections are also round the corner.

A total of 2,460 people have submitted their nomination papers to contest the upcoming national election and of them the nominations of 1899 were found valid after scrutiny.

“We're monitoring newspaper reports and analysing the information we've got from our field-level offices,” Mazid said.

The NBR has recently formed a high-powered team to identify the tax dodgers.

The team will also collect information about the high-priced cattle buyers from markets across the country and will search the tax files to verify their sources of income.

About the new technique to catch the tax dodgers, Mazid said the NBR will look into the tax file of a particular person going to buy expensive sacrificial cattle when NBR will have the relevant information.

Taking the past trend into consideration, the NBR apprehended that the candidates this time too might spend huge money on sacrificial animals for feasts to win the hearts of voters.

Earlier, the revenue board has undertaken a special action plan to net the big tax evaders in the capital aiming to widen the tax base.

At the initial stage, the NBR will concentrate more on the capital and it has directed the tax commissioners to prepare a list of big tax evaders and take legal actions after checking their TINs.

The revenue board has also asked all tax commissioners to detect the taxable person in their respective zones who are yet to come under the tax net.