NBR files case against Foodpanda

The National Board of Revenue's (NBR) VAT intelligence department filed a case on Wednesday against Foodpanda, one of the country's major online food suppliers, on charge of VAT evasion worth Tk 34 million.

A team of VAT intelligence recently conducted a sudden raid in Foodpanda's office at Navana Pristine Pavilion. Deputy director of VAT intelligence Nazmun Nahar Kaiser and assistant director Md Mohiuddin conducted the raid.

Foodpanda collects food items from 5,000 food stores and supplies to consumers by bikers. These stores are in agreement with Foodpanda, from which they get commission.

The VAT intelligence team found some information on secret sales from the laptops, seized from Foodpanda office.

The team also found that Foodpanda has been operating by registering itself under information technology services, through which it is evading VAT on house rent. It is no way consistent with the company's present business type.

Besides, Foodpanda mainly uses online platform to sell its products. The service code requires payment of 5.0 per cent VAT and 15 per cent VAT on house rent.

It was found that Foodpanda sold products worth Tk 276 million from July 2019 to April 2020. But the company showed sales value amounting to Tk 156 million to Gulshan VAT circle.

This way Foodpanda has hidden information on sales amounting to Tk 119 million for eight months. The company has also incurred a fine of Tk 0.96 million at a rate of 2.0 per cent per month as per the VAT law.

Foodpanda also did not pay VAT on house rent since registration. The intelligence team found that the amount of house rent since 2014 until 2018 was shown Tk 25 million, on which applicable VAT is Tk 2.9 million.

Besides, the company showed Tk 18 million as house rent since January 2019 until August 2020, on which VAT is Tk 2.76 million, and fine is Tk 2.36 million.

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