Submits report by 3 weeks on SIM replacement tax
The joint committee of the National Board of Revenue and mobile phone operators will submit its recommendation by three weeks on SIM replacement tax worth Tk 3,100 crore that the NBR has been claiming from the telcos since early 2012.
After weeks-long negotiations, the NBR and the four mobile phone operators on Sunday finalised the terms of references for the committee and decided that the committee would submit its report to the NBR after conducting inspections into documents on SIM replacement of four mobile phone operators.
According to the TOR, the committee would inspect four mobile operators’ documents related to SIM replacement on random basis to find out if the operators replaced the SIMs to its original subscribers or sold it to new clients.
‘As a method of inspection, the committee will select randomly at least 1,000 replaced SIMs by each of the four mobile phone operators — Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi, Airtel — and examine the type of ownership of SIMs such as new or old subscribers,’ a senior NBR official told New Age.
He said that the committee would also determine whether the NBR’s Large Taxpayers Unit (VAT) demanded SIM replacement tax accurately, he said.
The revenue board, however, turned down the demand placed by the operators for allowing them to show the subsidy on SIM as allowable expense at their financial statement.
‘There is no scope in law to accept subsidy as allowable expense as the operators give the subsidy to its subscribers as their marketing strategy,’ an NBR official said.
LTU (VAT) will form the eight-member committee as soon as possible after getting nomination from the NBR, the mobile phone operators, the Association of Mobile Telephone Operators of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
According to the TOR, the recommendation of the committee will be acceptable to the both parties and the NBR will follow the recommendations in future in imposing tax on SIM replacement.
LTU (VAT) will make a decision on the SIM replacement tax in line with the recommendation of the committee, the officials said.
In early 2012, 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 saying that the operators had not
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-With New Age input
