A-Challan has been made mandatory for depositing all government revenues and other receipts from Wednesday, July 1, 2026, aiming to bring every receipt into the Treasury Single Account in real time, end manual challans and strengthen public cash management.

From the beginning of FY2026-27, no ministry, division, department or subordinate office will be allowed to collect or deposit government revenue through any system other than A-Challan, according to a press release issued on Tuesday morning.

The release said any separate arrangement currently used for collecting public receipts will have to be discontinued, while funds lying in commercial bank accounts must be transferred to the government's Treasury Single Account through A-Challan by June 30, 2026.

The decision comes at a time when the digital challan platform has recorded strong growth in both value and use, showing that A-Challan has gradually become one of the most important digital tools in public financial management.

According to the fiscal year-wise A-Challan report, Tk 4,07,225.94 crore was collected through the system in FY2025-26, up from Tk 2,65,708 crore in FY2024-25. This means collections rose by nearly 50 percent in a single year.

A-Challan recorded strong growth in FY2025-26, processing 6.75 crore challans, up 71.7 percent from 3.93 crore in FY2024-25. Since its modest start with only 17 challans in FY2019-20, the platform has expanded rapidly, handling over 19.03 crore challans and mobilising more than Tk 10.63 lakh crore in government receipts over seven fiscal years.

The latest performance marks a major turnaround, as both collections and transaction volumes increased together, reflecting wider use across government revenue and service payment channels.

Online challans surged 92 percent to 5.36 crore, while online collections rose 54.5 percent to Tk 11,298.12 crore. OTC transactions also grew, with collections increasing to Tk 386,397.55 crore during the fiscal year.

The full implementation of A-Challan would help the government know its actual cash position more accurately, reduce idle public money in scattered bank accounts and improve cash management.

Under the manual system, citizens often had to deposit challans at designated branches of selected banks, mainly Bangladesh Bank or Sonali Bank.

This caused unnecessary travel, long waiting time and additional costs for service seekers. Manual challans also delayed the transfer of money to the government treasury, created scope for fake challans and made reconciliation of daily and monthly revenue figures difficult for banks and government offices.

A-Challan was introduced to address these problems. The web-based system allows government revenue and service fees to be deposited through counters of all branches of Bangladesh Bank and commercial banks, internet banking, mobile financial services such as bKash, Nagad, Rocket, Upay and Tap, and debit or credit cards.

For citizens, the biggest benefit is convenience. A person no longer needs to visit a specific bank branch to deposit government fees. Payments can now be made from a nearby bank branch or through digital channels. Once the payment is completed, the challan receipt is generated instantly and can be used on the same day.

For the government, the benefits are broader. Money deposited through A-Challan is transferred immediately to the Treasury Single Account maintained with Bangladesh Bank. This enables the government to monitor receipts in real time, improves transparency and helps reduce dependence on unnecessary borrowing.

The system also supports automatic reconciliation. After a challan is deposited, payment information is automatically matched among Bangladesh Bank, the relevant accounting office and the concerned government institution.

Credit scrolls sent by Bangladesh Bank are auto-uploaded to iBAS++, allowing accounts to be updated without the delays and errors associated with manual reconciliation.

Officials said the A-Challan dashboard gives ministries, departments and accounting offices real-time information on receipts, transaction status and deposit trends.

The Finance Division introduced the automated challan system in FY2019-20 as part of broader public financial management reforms.

The aim was to ensure real-time deposit of public money, prevent fake challans, improve revenue discipline and give the government a clearer picture of its daily cash balance.

With all government receipts coming through a single digital channel, A-Challan is expected to become a central instrument for faster revenue mobilisation, stronger treasury control and better service delivery.

END/ASA

Companies and organisations will be required to file tax returns on the income generated by employee welfare funds from the current fiscal year and pay a 27.5 percent tax on the earnings. 

The Income Tax Act 2023 incorporates the provision, lifting the tax exemption and amnesty on the compulsion to file returns for funds such as provident funds, gratuity funds and workers' profit participation funds maintained by the private sector.

The law, however, has exempted government-managed provident funds from taxation, raising questions.

TIM Nurul Kabir, executive director of the Foreign Investors' Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said there were many other avenues to collect tax.

"Employees benefit from provident funds after their retirement. So, the authority should not slap taxes on retirement benefit."

He said while levying the tax, the government has not treated provident funds of the private and public sectors equally.

"It is discriminatory," he said, adding that they would appeal to the tax authority for the withdrawal of the tax on income from provident funds.

Debabrata Roy Chowdhury, director for legal, regulatory and corporate affairs at Nestlé Bangladesh PLC, said the introduction of income tax on trust funds would lower the overall income from such schemes.

"This will have an adverse long-term impact on retired employees of private organisations."

Chowdhury urged the authority to address the issue in line with the spirit of the government's initiatives aimed at ensuring social security for private sector employees.

"The recent introduction of the universal pension scheme for private sector employees is a good example of that."

A senior official of the NBR, on condition of anonymity, said the income of government-managed provident funds was exempted in line with the Provident Fund Act 1925.

He said provident funds under the private sector had been historically exempted and there was no requirement to submit tax returns. As a result, it was unclear whether the funds were properly utilised.

"From now onwards, we will see proper disclosure."

The tax official said the contribution of payroll tax is about 3 percent of the total income tax although it should increase as the economy is growing.

Md Shahadat Hossain, a former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh, said income from investment in savings certificates, where people invest as a source of future earnings, is already taxed.

"From that perspective, the imposition of tax on provident and other employee welfare funds seems okay."

However, Towfiqul Islam Khan, senior research fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, said social protection for private sector employees was low.

"Provident and other workers' welfare-related funds provide little social protection. The imposition of tax will increase inequality. But there can't be any discrimination in taxation between private and government provident funds."

Khan, citing the latest income tax law that replaced the Income Tax Ordinance 1984, said the NBR tried to find new avenues to increase tax collection and improve the nation's revenue-gross domestic product ratio, which is one of the lowest in the world.

"We can see the desperation of the tax authority to boost collection. This ultimately reveals the inability of the NBR to catch the tax evaders and illicit money makers."