Aviation body wants waiver
National Board of Revenue and Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh are in a dispute over income tax payment for years as the CAAB is not paying the tax, claiming it as a non-taxable entity, NBR officials said. They said that the NBR had been asking the CAAB for opening tax file taking the organisation as taxable entity but the aviation body was yet to do so claiming it as a non-taxable entity.
‘The CAAB has demanded several times, latest in November 14, that the NBR should consider the organisation as a non-taxable body and provide exemption from paying income tax, though as per Finance Act-2011 it is a taxable organisation,’ an NBR official told New Age on Saturday.
He said that the NBR asked the CAAB to open income tax file and pay the tax immediately after the government identified the body as a tax payable enterprise.
On November 14, in a letter to NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain, CAAB chairman Air Vice Marshal Mahmud Hussain requested the revenue board to give the organisation exemption from paying any kind of income tax and super tax.
In the letter, Mahmud said, ‘The CAAB is not a commercial enterprise and it was not established for making profit rather it is a regulatory body of aviation related activities in the country.’
According to Civil Aviation Ordinance-1985, the CAAB is exempted from paying income taxes, he mentioned.
‘The organisation also provides aeronautical services and responsible for safe, expeditious and efficient flow of air traffic within the national airspace of the country. It is also custodian of all airfields and air navigation facilities in the country,’ the CAAB chairman said in the letter.
The CAAB is also responsible for maintaining passenger services and facilities at the airports and ensuring security to passengers and to detect and prevent penetration of terrorist activists on board from within national territory, he said.
‘All the activities mentioned above were done by own funds of the CAAB,’ Mahmud said in the letter to the NRB chairman.
Bangladesh Air Force, Bangladesh Army and Bangladesh Navy also use the installations and facilities of civil aviation authority for keeping the country safe and secured from enemies, he said.
‘It is important for the CAAB to remain financially solvent to keep the airports always ready for plying as part of conditions of the International Civil Aviation Organisation,’ he said.
The ICAO will include the CAAB in its black list if the Bangladesh’s aviation authority fails to maintain airports’ operational facilities in line with ICAO standards which will also make the introduction of Dhaka-New York flight uncertain, Mahmud added.
NBR officials said that they were examining the matter and a decision on it would be taken considering the existing laws and other relevant issues.
-With New Age input
