The National Board of Revenue (NBR) on Wednesday issued four separate notifications revoking a move to hike tax rates for mobile bills, restaurant eating cost, medicine purchase, and broadband internet use.
Furthermore, value-added tax (VAT) hikes on non-branded clothes, and vehicle repair workshops have also been dropped, restoring the previous duty regimes for these products and services after just about two weeks
Under the new notifications, VAT rates have been reduced on branded clothes, non-AC residential hotel rents, and branded sweets purchases to 10% from the previously declared 15%. The rates are higher than the 7.5% figure effective till January.
In this regard, the interim government has hiked duties for three consumer products and services compared with the rates effective during the Awami League regime, and left the rates of six other goods and services intact. The two-week-old hikes in duties for 90 other goods and services are expected to be retained.
Supplementary duty on mobile bills have been restored to 20% from the previously hiked 23%, a new 10% supplementary duty on broadband use has been dropped, medicine purchase VAT rate rolled back to 2.4%, and restaurant eating bill has been restored to 5%.
Furthermore, VATs on sale of clothes other than those from one’s own brand have been restored to 7.5%, and vehicle repairing workshop VAT restored to 10%.
On 9 January, the government raised VATs and duties for about 100 services and products, sparking calls from citizen groups and businessmen to revoke the move. Concerns that the present double digit consumer inflation would worsen further sparked the calls.
The duties were raised to improve the country’s tax-GDP ratio, thereby fulfilling an IMF condition for unlocking a trance of a $4.7 billion bailout package.
Courtesy: Daily Sun.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
