Businesses likely to require fresh BIN

Existing businesses may be required to obtain fresh business identification number (BIN) as per provisions of the new VAT and supplementary duty act, to get attuned to digital taxing process.    
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) will start issuing new nine-digit BIN for the businesses from August 22 as groundwork for enforcement of the new VAT law got underway. It will take effect from next fiscal year.   
Both new and existing Value Added Tax (VAT)-paying businesses have to take the fresh BIN within the current fiscal year (FY), 2016-17.
"Existing 840,000 BIN-holders will have to obtain the fresh BIN before July 01, 2017 while it will remain open for new businesses," said Md Zakir Hossain, deputy project director (DPD) of the VAT online project of the NBR.
The VAT online project is now conducting trial run of the new BIN- issuance system before starting its formal operation, he said.
User-acceptance-testing round-2 started on July 17 and will continue until July 21. Representatives of the different field-level VAT offices across the country have joined the round.
Mr Hossain said the VAT online project is testing the efficacy of the software.
"We have to ensure that software conforms to the newly designed business process relating to the registration," he added.
The new VAT and Supplementary Duty (SD) Act 2012 is expected to come into force from FY 2017-18. Online registration is one of the major features of the new act.
All of the existing BIN-holders will have to obtain the new registration number before the launch of the new act and taxing activity under it.
"We will start a massive campaign soon to make businesses aware about paying VAT online," Mr Hossain said.
VAT officials will consider both existing eleven-digit BIN and nine-digit one as valid for FY 2016-17 until implementation of the new VAT act.
Earlier, the VAT wing decided to issue the new online BIN to the existing 32,000 compliant businesses who submit VAT returns regularly. Officials said there are many fake VAT-registered businesses among the existing 840,000 BIN-holders. The number of existing BIN-holders may come down significantly after introduction of the online BIN issuance.
They said the existing small businesses under turnover-tax facility will also have to obtain new turnover-enlistment number online. Under the existing VAT law, businesses having annual turnover below Tk 8.0 million enjoy 3.0 per cent turnover tax instead of having to pay 15 per cent VAT. They have to obtain turnover- enlistment number instead of BIN number.
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