Businesses leaders on Sunday demanded that the National Board of Revenue end ‘underhand nexus’ between field-level value-added tax officials and non-registered traders in a bid to create level-playing field for tax-paying traders. At a revenue dialogue between the National Board of Revenue and the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry held at Institute of Diploma Engineers of Bangladesh in Dhaka, they said that many traders from every sector were remained out of tax and VAT net maintaining ‘good relationship’ with field officials of the NBR. Tax- and VAT-paying traders face uneven competition in businesses because of this discriminatory behaviour of the dishonest revenue officials, they said. They also demanded continuation of package VAT system for small traders as they would not be able to pay VAT at 15 per cent. At the programme, the traders also complained that the incidence of harassment by the VAT officials increased by many times just after the revenue board chairman had made a promise of harassment-free environment at the first revenue dialogue held on November 9. ‘The VAT officials are intensifying pressure on VAT-paying business entities but are not going to those who are evading VAT due to underhand nexus between the two parties,’ FBCCI president Abdul Matlub Ahmad said. The revenue board must have to stop the nexus and widen VAT net in a bid to create a level-playing field for honest traders, he said. There is a need for such partnership dialogue at field levels to resolve complexities on payment of VAT, Matlub said. Bangladesh Dokan Malik Samity president SA Quader Kiron said that the level of harassment shot up after the first meeting between the NBR and the FBCCI. ‘We are willing to pay VAT, not bribes to VAT officials,’ he said. Kiron also suggested for opening a desk by the FBCCI for attestation of VAT payment documents as they have to pay bribe at VAT offices. Speaking at the programme, NBR chairman Md Nojibur Rahman said a strong relationship between the revenue board and businesses was needed for achieving Tk 1,76,370-crore revenue collection target set for the financial year 2015-16. ‘The tax authorities will have to collect Tk 483 crore in every day and Tk 20 crore in every hour to achieve the target,’ he said. NBR members Farid Uddin, Jahangir Hossain and Parvez Iqbal, and FBCCI former first vice-president Md Jasim Uddin and current adviser Manzur Ahmed, among others, spoke at the programme.
