UNB, Dhaka
Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) on Wednesday strongly urged the government to remove the uncertainties on continuation of the tax holiday and widen the list of industries under the scheme in the next budget.
The MCCI came up with the plea at a pre-budget meeting with the National Board of Revenue (NBR) at its conference room with NBR chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid in the chair.
MCCI president Abdul Hafiz Chaudhury said the tax holiday system has proved to be the most attractive incentive for new investments and thereby creating additional employment opportunities.
He said that while granting tax holiday the NBR should also issue a certificate of exemption of advance income tax (AIT) to such holiday companies and do away with the need for procurement of AIT exemption certificate annually.
The MCCI in its budget proposal to the NBR demanded reduction of tax for non-listed public limited companies from 37.5 percent to 35 percent.
The oldest premier chamber of Bangladesh, MCCI, also demanded increasing the tax-free income of an individual to Tk 200,000 as against the existing Tk 165,000.
They also proposed reconstituting the tribunal benches. “Tribunal benches manned by non-judicial members are not in a position to deliver qualitative judgment. An income tax functionary is not often supposed to have requisite background such as to deal with cases involving laws associated with complexities, ambiguities and multi-connotations,” the chamber said.
“A judicial member having experience in judicial matters is capable of passing appropriate rulings on important legal matters improving the quality of judgment,” they said.
The MCCI put emphasis on equal treatment of agro-based industries and pharmaceutical industries for import of vitamins under the same HS Code.
The chamber suggested that to make the local ballpoint pen industries more competitive, the government should lower the rate of import duty on ink for ballpoint pen to 10 percent from 15 percent.
It also said that to save the local industries, supplementary duty on raw materials and components should be abolished as a matter of principle to enable the local industries to survive.
The MCCI further demanded withdrawal of VAT on milk products like flavored milk, powder milk, condensed milk, milk candy and yoghurt to encourage milk production and consumption.
Courtesy of www.thebangladeshtoday.com
