NBR Chairman urged businessmen to know more about the new VAT Act
DHAKA, July 27 (NsNewsWire) — To create awareness about the newly implemented VAT and Supplementary Duty Act-2012, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) organized a workshop on “Awareness Raising on Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act-2012” at CIRDAP Auditorium on 27 July, 2019. Chairman of National Board of Revenue (NBR) Md. Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, NDC was present as the chief guest while Member (VAT Implementation & IT), NBRShahnaj Parveen was present as special guest. DCCI President Osama Taseerchaired the workshop.
More than 150 participants from different business houses took part in this workshop. Md. Zakir Hossain, Deputy Project Director, VAT online Project, NBR and Tax Consultant of DCCI Snehasish Barua made presentations on different aspects of new VAT and SD Act.
NBR Chairman Md. Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, ndc said that the economic growth of Bangladesh is progressing. Internal demand, consumption as well as government’s expenditure are also increasing day by day. In the budget foreign aid is only 2 percent of total GDP and 13-14 percent of total budget, he said. He also said that rates of Tax, VAT in our country are quite lower than many other countries in the world. Besides our collection of VAT and Tax is short of our target. He said the new ‘VAT Act 2012’ is being implemented from 1st of July of this year. But we need to create awareness among the businessmen and mass people to make them understand the new VAT Act. We have to enhance our domestic resource mobilization, he informed. In the 2018-19 fiscal the revenue collection was 2,30,000 crore taka against the target of taka 2,80,000 crore, he said. He said that businessmen must not be harassed by the tax officials. He also requested the businessmen to bring any incident of harassment if happened into his notice so that he could take stern actions. He said in a country of 170 million people, only 2 million people submit their tax returns, so we have to widen the tax net to increase the revenue. Besides, he underscored the importance of ensuring discipline in tax collection system.
DCCI President Osama Taseer said that in 2019-20 fiscal revenue collection target was 1,23,067 crore taka. He said VAT free turnover limit is increased to 50 lakh taka and in this Act, VAT Refund System has been introduced. Advance Income Tax on import of capital machineries has been exempted which would facilitate private sector. He also urged for AIT exemption on import of raw materials, VAT rebate system for all VAT payers and VAT exemption on life-saving medicines. He thanked NBR for taking initiatives of establishing tax offices in the Upazila level, increasing tax area from 31 to 63 and increasing tax payers to 1 crore. In order to increase tax-GDP ratio, he pointed out that the revenue structure should be business friendly, export oriented and manufacturing-led economy. To gain the expected economic development, private sector investment-GDP ratio should be 30 percent, he said.
Member of NBR Shahnaj Parveen said New VAT Act has been formulated keeping in mind to reduce cost of doing business. She also informed that refund system, e-payment and audit system are in process of being online. She urged the business community to know the details about the rules and procedures of new VAT Act and concerned SROs.
DCCI Senior Vice President Waqar Ahmad Choudhury gave vote of thanks at the function.
Speakers in the open discussion session urged for package VAT system, harassment free VAT collection system, use of ICT, establishing VAT Call Centre and App based VAT, tax collection system.
DCCI Vice President Imran Ahmed, Directors Alhaj Deen Mohammad, Engr. Md. Al Amin, Hossain A Sikder, Md. Rashedul Karim Munna, Kh. Rashedul Ahsan, Shams Mahmud, Enamul Haque Patwary, Former Presidents Rashed Maksud Khan, MH Rahman and Sayeeful Islam were present among others.