NBR renews move to realise \\\'unpaid\\\' VAT from GP

The government's revenue authority has sought legal opinion on placing demand notice to the telecom-giant Grameenphone (GP) Limited for realising Tk 800 million in unpaid VAT along with interests on the amount.
Officials said the Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) under the Value Added Tax (VAT) wing of the NBR sent a letter to the Attorney-General of Bangladesh Supreme Court for advice as to whether there is any legal complexity concerning the recovery of the amount along the interest.
The VAT wing has found out the unpaid VAT against the lease of optical fibre that GP had taken lease from the Bangladesh Railway (BR).
The actual demand notice was for Tk 310 million in service charges on the lease, says the letter sent to the Attorney-General office.
The unit served the first demand notice on the GP adding a monthly interest rate at 2.0 per cent on July 19, 2005 under the VAT law 1991, section 55, it said.
The demand notice was served with a provision on 'charging interests until realization of the actual revenue claimed by the unit,' it added.
A VAT official said despite repeated efforts, the VAT wing failed to realise the long-overdue value tax.
Earlier, it had also requested the GP to submit documents relating to payment of the demanded VAT, he added. Challenging the demand, the GP filed a writ petition with the High Court against the claim of LTU in 2012. The HC had served a stay order in this connection.
Following the stay order, the LTU filed a civil petition for leave to appeal against the interim order of the HC. The Appellate Division has stayed the stay order from the HC until resolving the rule.  After obtaining the appellate division's order, the LTU served two notices on the GP.
In the twin-notice, the VAT wing claimed an aggregate amount of Tk 805 million that adds up interest amount of 100 months' worth Tk 495 million, the letter said.
A senior VAT official said the wing sought to know whether there are any legal complexities in initiating move to claim the amount as per conditions of the demand notice served on the GP in 2005 and also in accordance with the SC order. "Is there any legal complexity to raise the demand for Tk 805 million instead of Tk 310 million from the GP?" The LTU wrote in a letter to the AG office.
Earlier, two NBR investigations had found the unpaid VAT since the agreement signed in 1997 to use the latent capacity and facility of the BR's optical fibre digital communication network.
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