NTN Condition to Open Bank Account Impracticable

The federal government’s decision of linking the opening of a new bank account with the provision of National Tax Number (NTN) has been termed as infeasible and impracticable by the banking and private sector experts.

In the new budget for 2009-10, the federal government has made mandatory the provision of NTN for opening a new bank account. Sources said that how the students, house-wives, labourers, farmers and other common people, who want to open new bank accounts, would be able to provide National Tax Number to the banks.

Hundreds of thousands of small farmers, students, labourers, retailers and house-wives, etc., neither pay income tax nor file any tax return and how they would be arranging the NTN, a banker said.

He said that the condition was childish and the policy-makers should explain why the condition of NTN had been mentioned in the new budget for opening a bank account. It would not only disappoint the above-quoted segments of the society, but also cause a setback to the growth of the customers-base of the banking sector in 2009-10, he added.

Apparently the government had included the NTN condition with the aim to bring into tax-net the people who want to open a bank account, but the policy-makers did not bother to understand that there are millions of people who either do not earn money or their income is not taxable and how they would arrange NTN, banker said.

Via The Nation.