Understanding customs tariffs

Doulot Akter Mala reviewing the book | August 15, 2014 00:00:00

Taxation of goods at import and export points at the port is a difficult calculation for businesses. Many importers are often confused as there is no available data to let them know the exact amount of payable tax on import or export of goods at the customs stations. Such an unclear picture also hinders business plans of investors. The government usually changes tax rates of many imported products every year. Businesses find it difficult to have a clear idea about the updates on changes that the government has made in the current national budget.

To address the problem, a book on import and export taxations for fiscal year (FY) 2014-15 has been published recently. The book will help businesses find out the tax rates on import or export products with ease.

Ruhul Amin, who works at the Central Information System of the National Board of Revenue (NBR), has compiled the book titled Bangladesh Customs Tariff.

The second edition of the book, which has become very popular with business people, is now available in the market. The first edition dealt with import-export of the 2013-14 fiscal year.

Considering the sensitivity involved in the taxation of import-export products, the author of the book gave detailed statistics about tax incidence on different products. There are six types of taxes on import of goods: they are Customs Duty, Regulatory Duty, Value Added Tax (VAT), Supplementary Duty, Advance Income Tax (AIT) and Advance Trade VAT. Businessmen need to know about the complete tax structure to estimate the cost while importing products. The book will help industrialists, businesses, importers, exporters, agents and other stakeholders involved in the taxation process.

There are twenty separate sections in the book to explain the details about taxes on different products including live animals, animal products, vegetable products, animal or vegetable fats and oil, textiles and textile articles, footwear, industrial materials, machinery etc.

The writer is a journalist. [email protected]