Government's revenue authority has rejected a proposal for waiving value added tax (VAT) for brick industry in the country's backwoods north on ground of acute energy crisis in the region.
Officials said HN Ashiqur Rahman, Member of Parliament (MP) from Rangpur-5 constituency and chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of public administration, had made the proposal to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) recently.
The lawmaker had proposed that the NBR allow the industry of machine-made environment-friendly brick, including Hybrid Hoffman Kiln of North Bengal area, to enjoy VAT-exemption facility to help the sector of basic construction material flourish.
The VAT wing of the NBR has found no provision in the VAT law to offer such waiver to industries in a specific area.
In the proposal, the MP pointed out that there is no gas in the northern region and supply of coal is also inadequate. "The industries faced 12-14 hours of power outage and also got affected by political turmoil."
The proposal failed to get consent of the board members of the NBR.
The NBR raised the tariff value of brick in two phases in fiscal years 2015-16 and 2016-17.
Tariff value for machine-made bricks (non-refractory building bricks except facing one) has been raised to Tk 3240 per thousand in the budget for FY 2016-17 from Tk 2,700 and Tk 2,160 in previous two years respectively.
It has been increased to Tk 4876 for machine-made first-grade category of bricks from Tk 4,056 and Tk 3, 456 in last two years respectively.
Tariff value for second-grade bricks was fixed at Tk 3,700 in FY 2016-17 from Tk 3,084 and Tk 2,484 in FY 2015-16 and 2014-15.
For brick chips, tariff value was raised to Tk 4778 from Tk 3982 and Tk 3382 in last two years respectively.
The NBR officials said the brick industries in the northern region will get smooth power supply as the government has boosted development activity to ensure uninterrupted power to industrial units.
"It is difficult to offer VAT exemption to the industries of North Bengal only on this ground as the revenue authority never did this on the basis of area," the revenue authority stated in rejecting the plea.
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