Cabinet body likely to consider online VAT system proposal

The Cabinet Purchase Committee, the highest body to approve any public procurement, is likely to consider a French company’s tender proposal for new online value added tax (VAT) system. Official sources said the National Board of Revenue (NBR) recently sent the proposal of France-based firm BULL SAS to the Cabinet Division to place it before the Cabinet body’s meeting scheduled for today (Sunday). The move for the online VAT payment system was undertaken by the NBR as part of the government’s plan to put in place such a system from mid-2015 to strengthen and modernise the revenue collection system. The government has already passed a bill in parliament in 2012 as part of the reforms in the VAT collection system under which the ‘VAT Online’ project was undertaken by the NBR. Easing the VAT payment by the commercial ventures is also one of the main goals behind the move, said the officials. The NBR has selected the French firm BULL SAS through a tender process to procure a specialised web-based ‘Commercial-off-the Shelf (COTS)’ software to set up the Integrated VAT Administration System (IVAS). The French company has offered to do the job at a cost of about Tk 861.4 million. Of the amount, it quoted about Tk 124.7 million in local currency and $ 9.916 million in foreign currency as the project cost, according to UNB.