National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem on Tuesday said that the government would provide support to the entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to further flourish the operations of such enterprises.
He also suggested the entrepreneurs of this sector find out ways so that others could not take away these facilities.
“It’s hard to monitor while giving support to the SMEs. The traders will ultimately get the facility if we want to support this sector (SMEs). So, it has to be clarified and ensured so that the SMEs can only get the facility under this arrangement,” he said.
The NBR Chairman was speaking at a pre-budget meeting for the next fiscal year (FY22) with the SME Foundation.
Consultant of the SME Foundation M Lutfar Rahman suggested for bringing changes in some sections of the existing VAT Act for the development of this sector.
The SME Foundation placed a total of 31 customs related, 21 income tax related and 11 VAT related proposals for the budget of the next fiscal year.
While taking part in the pre-budget discussions, the leaders of Bangladesh Electric Motor Pump Association and Agriculture Machineries Association have raised their objections for imposing fine for not submitting VAT returns on the 15th of every month as well as not hanging VAT registration in front of the business establishments.
They said that the field-level officials have discouraged them to submit VAT returns through online, rather to submit those returns through manual system. Besides, they alleged that the Business Identification Numbers (BINs) often get locked without informing the businessmen.
In response, NBR member Masud Sadik said that the revenue board has been motivating businesses to submit VAT returns through online while 70 percent of the overall VAT returns have already come under online operations.
In response to the demand for giving additional facilities to the entrepreneurs of the tea industry, the NBR Chairman said the government received less returns against the tax and VAT facilities extended to this sector.
Apart from this, the leaders of the automobile and transport sectors also placed their budget proposals.
