As part of the government's plan to boost the collection of value-added tax (VAT), the revenue authorities have been able to bring a total of 2, 82, 202 business entities under VAT registration.
In the fiscal year 2020-21, a total of 1, 67, 169 companies took VAT registration from the National Board of Revenue (NBR) while the number of companies having VAT registration was 1, 15, 033 in 2019-20, according to the latest data of NBR.
Sources said the NBR has taken up the VAT Online project to increase the coverage of VAT. In addition, the NBR has launched field surveys to bring more business entities under online VAT registration. As a result, the number of registered organizations has increased, said an NBR official.
According to the NBR's statistics, among the 11 VAT Commissionerates across the country, the highest number of 36,092 business entities took registrations from the Dhaka South Customs, Excise and VAT Commissionerate.
Recently, the NBR in an order said large business entities paying VAT monthly Tk 1.0 crore or above will have to make such payment through automated invoice (A invoice) from January next.
Such large companies will also have to submit VAT returns online, said the NBR sources.
"We've already informed those large business entities to complete preparation to pay VAT online from January, 2022 as the NBR has streamlining the VAT collection system to stop dodging of VAT," said an official of the VAT wing of the NBR.
According to NBR sources, the number of companies that pay more than Tk 1.0 crore in VAT per month is not very high. Basically, the big corporates in the service and manufacturing sector pay an average of more than Tk 1.0 crore as VAT per month.
The NBR official said British American Tobacco, Grameenphone, Robi and various big banks and pharmaceutical companies are among the large VAT payers. Most of these companies file VAT returns online and as per the NBR's plan, such organizations will have to do everything online from next January, said the NBR official.
As per the VAT rules, every business entity must have a unique business identification number (BIN) to run business activities. Using this number, a business organization collects VAT against its sale of various goods and services and deposits the collected money with the government treasury.
As per the rules of the NBR, under the Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act, 2012 and the Value Added Tax and Supplementary Rules 2016, businesses having VAT registration are required to file VAT returns within 15 days at the end of a month. Otherwise, there is a provision for imposition of interest and penalty.
Generally, if the annual turnover of a business entity is less than Tk 30 lakh, it does not have to take VAT registration. If the turnover is between Tk 30.01 lakh and Tk 80 lakh, the company has to pay 3 per cent VAT. And if it is more than Tk 80 lakh, it has to pay 15 per cent VAT.
