NBR implements 58pc BTC recommendations in four fiscal years
Talha Bin Habib | Saturday, 3 January 2015
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has implemented only 69 recommendations out of 119 made by the Bangladesh Tariff Commission (BTC) over the last four fiscal years (FYs), officials said.
Only 58 per cent recommendations of BTC were implemented by the revenue board, pushing the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) to hold a stakeholders' meeting to discuss how to fully implement the recommendations.
"We are getting prepared to hold a meeting. We will sit with the BTC, the NBR and other stakeholders to sort out the bottlenecks to the way of implementing the recommendations," a high official of the MoC told the FE.
He said the MoC is working to send a letter to the Ministry of Finance.
The BTC in a letter to the MoC on December 10 last
year requested the ministry to arrange a meeting with the NBR and other stakeholders. In the letter, the BTC said that the NBR implemented/accepted only 69 recommendations out of total 119 made by it over the last four FYs.
During the FY 2010-11, BTC sent 28 recommendations to NBR. And out of the number only 14 were implemented. Similarly it implemented only 13 recommendations out of 20 during the FY 2011-12. During the FY 2012-13 there were 31 recommendations but NBR implemented 16 and in the FY 2013-14 there were 32 recommendations and out of the number 21 were implemented by NBR.
According to section 10 (20) under schedule 1 of Rules of Allocation of Business 1996, framing tariff rules and fixing rates etc lie under the jurisdiction of the MoC. And according the BTC - which is under the MoC - has the responsibility to give recommendations on tariff rates and import and export duty structure.
Besides, under the Customs Act 1969 of 18 A, 18 B and 18 E the government gives responsibility to the chairman of BTC to look into the anti-dumping, counter-veiling and safeguard duty.
"We sent a letter to the MoC last month. We requested our ministry to hold a stakeholders' meeting. It will help us to reach perfection towards policy formulation and its implementation," BTC chairman Dr Md Azizur Rahman told the FE.
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