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The National Board of Revenue (NBR) and Genex Infosys are going to install 500 electronic fiscal devices (EFDs) in Dhaka and Chattogram today after nine month of agreement with private company.
NBR signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the company on November 5 last year, aiming to boost VAT collection and curb evasion.
This was the first time it outsourced such a service from a local listed company, which was supposed to install three lakh EFDs within the next five years.
NBR is scheduled to inaugurate officially the EFD management system today at its head office in the capital.
The Finance Minister AHM Mustafa will grace the occasion as chief guest while NBR and Genex Infosys officials will be present.
Earlier, the revenue board in August 2019 experimentally introduced EFDs in areas under the VAT commissionerates in Dhaka and Chattogram.
NBR aimed at the time EFDs would be installed in 6,000 retail stores by June 2021 and 10,000 by the end of the year. It later repeatedly extended the deadline to meet the target but failed to do so every time.
However, the NBR installed 9,449 EFDs, including 431 sales data controllers (SDCs), statistics show.
There were 4,32,955 VAT-registered establishments in the country till April this year, 24 per cent more than the corresponding month last year, NBR data shows.
The revenue administration initially installed EFDs in shops free of cost but later charged merchants for it. But due to the reluctance shown by traders, the revenue board took a different approach. It contracted out the installation of EFDs and also VAT collection to Genex Infosys with a target to mobilise an additional Tk 20,000 crore annually.
It has been eight months since the signing of the MoU, the NBR and Genex Infosys are yet to install even a single device. The NBR earlier said around 20,000 machines would be installed in the current financial year.
NBR sources said that the target was to set up three lakh EFDs within five years starting from FY24, including 60,000 every financial year.
As per the MoU, the vendor will have to supply and install 20,000 EFDs or SDCs in each VAT zone in the first year, said officials during the agreement signing ceremony.
At the MoU signing ceremony, Moinul Khan, NBR member of the VAT wing, said the revenue board currently receives Tk 5,000 crore in VAT from retail businesses and the outsourcing is expected to help collect an additional Tk 20,000 a year.
He said the vendor will be paid around Tk 530 for collecting Tk 1 lakh (0.53 per cent).
