SIM REPLACEMENT TAX
Mobile cos show little interest in ADR
Mobile phone operators have shown a little interest in adopting alternative dispute resolution mechanism offered by the National Board of Revenue to settle dispute over SIM replacement tax worth Tk 3,100 crore which is pending for more than one-and-a-half years.
Leaders of the Association of Mobile Telephone Operators of Bangladesh met NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain on Tuesday to resolve different tax-related issues including SIM replacement tax of the telecom industry before the 3G spectrum auction scheduled on September 2.
At the meeting, all the pending issues including the ADR mechanism have been discussed, NBR officials and telecom industry leaders said.
‘Telecom operators seemed a little bit indifferent to adopting the ADR proposed by the NBR rather they wanted to know if they can go for international arbitration to settle the dispute,’ an NBR official told New Age after the meeting.
The NBR responded negatively saying that there was no scope to go for the international arbitration as the dispute was absolutely an internal matter of two parties of the country, he said.
The NBR last week offered the mobile phone operators to resolve the dispute outside the court in a faster and easier manner through the ADR.
The NBR made the proposal as the High Court sent back the case related to SIM replacement tax to the Large Taxpayers Unit (VAT) on June 6 and directed the revenue authorities to solve the issue with the four mobile operators — Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi, Airtel — within 120 days.
In early 2012, the NBR claimed Tk 1,580 crore from the GP, Tk 774 crore from Banglalink, Tk 664 crore from Robi and Tk 82 crore from Airtel saying that the mobile operators did not pay the amounts as SIM replacement tax.
Out of the unpaid SIM
replacement tax, Tk 2,000 crore is original tax while more than Tk 1,000 crore is for interest and late fees, the NBR officials said.
AMTOB secretary general TIM Nurul Kabir told New Age that they discussed about the possible modalities of the ADR including other issues but no results came from the meeting.
Both the parties will meet again tomorrow to finalise the issues, he said.
Another telecom leader, who preferred not to be named, said that they wanted an ADR format of International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce instead of the one run by the NBR.
The NBR officials, however, said that mobile operators had some confusion about the ADR mechanism and they (revenue officials) tried to eliminate their confusion explaining the system.
According to the ADR rules, a group of independent facilitators will help both parties involved in the disputes to come in consensus. The NBR has already appointed 12 facilitators comprising former advisers to caretaker government, judicial services, chartered accountants, lawyers and nominated business leaders of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers and Commerce and Industry.
A facilitator plays the role of a mediator between the tax authorities and the disputant tax payer.
Meeting sources said that among the other issues the mobile operators reiterated their demand for withdrawal of the SIM replacement tax and wanted rebate on VAT for 2G licence renewal fees.
The mobile operators also demanded for allowing them to show the subsidy on SIM as allowable expense in their financial statements.
The NBR officials said the revenue board did not agree to provide subsidy as allowable expense saying that subsidy could not be considered as expense as mobile operators gave it as their marketing strategy.
NBR’s income tax wing and value-added tax wing will scrutiny their proposals once again before the meeting that will be held tomorrow, they said.
-With New Age input
