Sim Replacement Tax
NBR to seek time extension from HC to solve dispute
The National Board of Revenue is going to seek time extension from the High Court for solving the dispute with four mobile phone operators over SIM replacement tax worth Tk 3,100 crore, officials said. The revenue board has to seek the time extension as it is set to miss the deadline given by the court to settle the dispute, they said. The NBR’s Large Taxpayers Unit commissioner will appeal to the HC seeking time extension in a day or two, they said on Sunday.
The court on June 6 sent the case related to SIM replacement tax to the LTU (VAT) and directed the commissioner to resolve the issue within 120 working days which is going to be expired on November 7.
‘The tripartite committee formed by the revenue board for submitting recommendations could not submit its final report till Sunday. So it is not possible for the commissioner to make any decision by the deadline,’ a high official of the NBR told New Age on Sunday.
Considering the circumstances, the commissioner, Md Abdul Kafi, has decided to seek more time from the court, he said.
The NBR in early August formed the committee consisting of representatives from the revenue board, LTU (VAT), four mobile operators and the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission for submitting recommendations by three weeks on SIM replacement tax after conducting inspections into documents on SIM replacement of the four operators.
The NBR has been demanding Tk 3,100 crore from the four mobile phone operators — Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink and Airtel — since early 2012 claiming that the operators had dodged the taxes through selling old SIMs to new clients.
The NBR claimed a total of Tk 1,580 crore from the GP, Tk 774 crore from Banglalink, Tk 664 crore from Robi and Tk 82 crore from Airtel.
Out of unpaid SIM replacement tax, Tk 2,000 crore is original tax while more than Tk 1,000 crore is in interest and late fees.
According to the LTU, several of its investigations had found that mobile operators sold old SIMs, most of which had been abandoned by original clients, to new clients but did not pay the tax for those SIMs.
The mobile companies denied the allegations saying that they did not sell any SIM to new client but replaced the old SIMs for the original customers.
The committee in the last week of August submitted an interim report but could not reach any conclusion on the amount of tax as the outcome of the committee’s scrutiny differed in different criteria.
Then the LTU commissioner formed four sub-committees to further verify the identities of more than 2.5 crore disputed SIMs on random basis to find out whether the operators sold the SIMs to new clients or replaced to original subscribers.
According to NBR officials, the GP had replaced 1,34,58,354 SIMs between July 2007 and July 2011, Airtel replaced 5,55,217 SIMs from February 2009 to July 2011, Banglalink replaced 70,21,834 SIMs between June 2009 and December 2011 and Robi replaced 52,61,541 SIMs from March 2007 to December 2011.
A member of the committee said that they were waiting for reports of the sub-committees.
‘The sub-committee may submit their reports very soon and after getting the reports the main committee will finalise its final report,’ he said.
After getting the report, the commissioner will arrange hearing sessions with the operators to determine the amount of tax payable by the operators in line with the recommendation of the committee, he said.
-With New Age input
