The New Nation - Internet Edition

ECONOMIC REPORTER

National Board of Revenue (NBR) will conduct a campaign throughout the country to generate awareness and encourage people to pay tax.

Mohammad Abdul Mazid, Chairman of NBR, said this at a press briefing at the NBR office in the city yesterday.

"We are looking for new taxpayers and also becoming successful in this regard," he said. "Many people supported our activities and showed enthusiasm for paying taxes."

Mazid said they would organise the campaign at the district and thana levels. He said the NBR is sincere to bring down the harassment of people in paying taxes.

Contradicting a news item titled "VAT net expands widely', published in some dailies, he said it is not true at all.

He said the NBR had proposed to bring only three products and services under the sphere of Value Added Tax (VAT). These are Jarda, Gul and the taxable products servicing organisations.

Mazid said there was no proposal on raising the tariff of MS rod in the proposed national budget of FY2008-09.

He said since the amount of VAT on MS rod ranges between Tk 375 and Tk 450 per ton locally. It is insignificant against the existing market price of Tk 70,000 per ton of MS rod. So, there is no need to reduce VAT on MS rod.

Referring to the imposition of VAT on local proprietors of satellite channels, Mazid said since it is impossible for the NBR to collect VAT from the original owners of satellite channels, the government has proposed imposition of 35 per cent VAT on the local distributors.

In this regard, he further said it is totally impossible to realise VAT imposed on advertisements from the owners of foreign satellite channels. That is why additional 20 per cent supplementary duty has been proposed on the local distributors of satellite channels.

"It's a business-related matter between the satellite channel owners and distributirs. It should not be considered as indirect tax and it will also not be logical to put the burden of this VAT on the consumers," he said.

The NBR chief said that they proposed to reduce the import duty on printing paper 12 per cent from 25 per cent and incraese the rate of import duty on printed paper to 25 per cent taking into acount the losses of the printing industry in the country.

In response to a question he said, "The opportunity and facility for legalising the undisclosed money will certainly not help the people to as the rate of taxes increases by 10 per cent every year."