House passes Finance Bill-2014

Parliament passed Saturday the ‘Finance Bill-2014’ introducing a new one per cent surcharge on mobile phones.
The money from the new surcharge will be used for the development of the education and health sector, according to a news agency.
For import level, the surcharge will be imposed like the import duty and the time it is imposed, while for locally produced sets it will be charged like the VAT and the time it is imposed.
The Finance Minister came up with the Bill that contained some changes complying with Prime Minister and Leader of the House Sheikh Hasina’s proposals in some areas.
He withdrew the five per cent gain tax on capital market investment while giving ten per cent rebate on the applicable tax for the listed companies which will give minimum 30 per cent dividend.
He also reduced the 10 percent duty on mobile phones to five percent and waived the Advance Income Tax.
Earlier the Prime Minister gave him suggestions on seven issues.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith in the Finance Bill included the Cinema Hall/Cineplex and rice bran oil industry for tax rebate facility scheme like some other industries.
He proposed to reduce the Advance Income Tax (AIT) for selling flat or building from Tk 90 per square feet to Tk 55.76 per square feet (Tk 600 per square meter).
Complying with the request from the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister proposed to increase the supplementary duty on toothpaste, soap, detergent, leaf spring, razor, razor parts and stainless steel from 15 per cent to 20 per cent.
He proposed to increase the supplementary duty on float glass and cosmetics items from 30 per cent to 45 per cent to guard the local industries.
Muhith proposed to impose 20 per cent supplementary duty on shavers, where currently it is zero.
Restructuring the duty of the hybrid cars, the Finance Minister proposed to impose 45 per cent supplementary duty on 1800 cc new hybrid car.
Helping the local pharmaceuticals industries, he proposed to reduce the duty on Aluminium foil from 10 per cent to five percent waiving the regulatory duty.
He reduced from 25 to ten percent duty on graphite electrode as this item is important for rod producing and also waived the five percent regulatory duty.
Muhith waived the five percent regulatory duty on Super Enamelled Copper Wire, which is an essential item for producing transformer.
Considering the demand from the local electric fan manufacturers the Finance Minister proposed to reduce the 25 per cent duty on electric fan motor to 10 percent and waived the five percent regulatory duty.
He proposed to reduce the duty on LPG cylinder to 10 percent from 25 per cent.
The Finance Minister proposed to waive the duty on three raw materials of RMG, pet chips, synthetic filament tow and artificial staple fibre.
To provide safeguard to domestic tyre producers, he increased the duty on Bus/Lorry Tyre, of rim size upto 16 inch to 25 per cent from 10 per cent, but waived the five percent regulatory duty.
As per the advice from the Prime Minister, Muhith waived the VAT on kidney dialysis solution, cancer prevention medicine, vaccine for human, and vaccine for veterinary insulin.
He also proposed to withdraw the VAT on handmade biscuit and cake for which price is below Tk 100 as the mass people are the main consumer of this kind of products.
Removing the 10 per cent service VAT on travel agency to provide stimulation on the tourism, the Finance Minister proposed to impose 7.5 per cent neat VAT.
Later, the House passed the Finance Bill-2014 voice vote without any objection from the opposition bench although they were present.