NBR seeks curb on errant importers

The National Board of Revenue has requested the central bank to ask banks not to open letters of credit in favour of any importers who skipped updating business identity.
Importers are required to renew Business Identification Number after October 31.
The tax collectors noticed that some banks have issued L/Cs against the importers without having 13-digit BIN, which may create complexities in future.
The revenue authority has already extended the deadline for obtaining 13-digit BIN until October 31, 2019 in order to conduct smooth import and other business activities.
The online VAT project under the board has extended the timeframe after it found a large number of businesses have yet to update their registration number in line with the new VAT and Supplementary Duty Act-2012, implemented from July 1, 2019.
The previous deadline for updating the old nine-digit and 11-digit BINs to 13-digit expired on August 14, 2019.
Both nine-digit e-BINs and 11-digit BINs became invalid after August 14.
In July, the NBR asked all businesses to update their existing BINs with the database of the VAT online system.
In a letter on Sunday, the online project director Syed Mushfiqur Rahman requested deputy governor of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) Ahmed Jamal to instruct all banks and other organisations not to allow the import of products using the old BIN after October 31.
Only 13-digit new and updated BIN can be used for opening L/Cs after the expiry of the deadline.
In the letter, the project head said the database of the VAT registered businesses have to be updated as per the new automated VAT law.
Of the 13-digit BIN, the first nine-digit is an identification number of businesses and the last four digits are jurisdiction identification number of the businesses that are changeable with the transfer of business location.
"We have noticed that a significant numbers of businesses have yet to obtain the 13-digit BIN within the previous deadline. It has disrupted the flow of proper VAT collection," the letter said.
Businesses will not be able to submit VAT returns online except the updated BIN.
Still, the project admitted the adoption of a new system needs time and cooperation from all quarters.
VAT officials said some 37,186 businesses obtained the 13-digit BIN until September 30, 2019. There were a total of 167,000 nine-digit BIN holders until June 30, 2019.
Also, there were some 840,000 BIN holders before the introduction of online BIN.
Officials said businesses would get BIN against their National Identity numbers.
VAT officials expected that there would be no fake BIN holders in the new online VAT registration system.
However, some businesses have made complains about technical errors in the online system and difficulties in accessing to the online return form while submitting their returns.
After the complaints of the businesses, in early September, the NBR instructed its field-level VAT offices to issue BIN within the three working days after application submission.
The NBR introduced the online BIN registration system in March 2017.

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