Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (BTRC) declined to receive the mobile operators' last quarter's payment without value-added tax (VAT), mobile operator's organisation - AMTOB said Wednesday.
Mobile Network Operators of the country was supposed to make their last quarter's (April - June, 2019) payment of different charges including revenue sharing, social obligation fund, annual spectrum charge fees, etc. to BTRC deducting VAT amount, since the regulator does not have VAT registration.
But the regulator declined to receive the payment, said Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) Secretary General Brigadier General S M Farhad (Retd.) in a press statement.
He said, according to the recently passed Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act 2012, it is mandatory to have VAT registration to any supplier of service entity, which includes BTRC as well.
Under section 49(2) of the VAT & SD Act 2012, "If a supplier is not registered or enlisted, and if a combined tax invoice and withholding certificate is not issued, the withholding entity shall not receive any supply from such supplier and shall pay no price against such supply to the supplier."
However, though BTRC does not have VAT registration, the MNOs decided to pay the charges to the regulator to run the telecommunication service uninterrupted considering more than 160 million mobile users. But the BTRC refused to accept, said S M Farhad.
Earlier AMTOB had requested both NBR (National Board of Revenue) and BTRC to find a way out on how to make the payment of the quarterly charges avoiding any legal complication but did not receive any response until date, he added.
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