UNB, Dhaka :
The Cabinet Purchase Committee, the highest body to approve any public procurement, is likely to consider a French company’s tender proposal for new online value added tax (VAT) system.
Official sources said the National Board of Revenue (NBR) recently sent the proposal of France-based firm BULL SAS to the Cabinet Division to place it before the Cabinet body’s meeting scheduled for Sunday.
The move for the online VAT payment system was undertaken by the NBR as part of the government’s plan to put in place such a system from mid-2015 to strengthen and modernise the revenue collection system.
The government has already passed a bill in parliament in 2012 as part of the reforms in the VAT collection system under which the ‘VAT Online’ project was undertaken by the NBR.
Easing the VAT payment by the commercial ventures is also one of the main goals behind the move, said the officials.
The NBR has selected the French firm BULL SAS through a tender process to procure a specialised web-based ‘Commercial-off-the Shelf (COTS)’ software to set up the Integrated VAT Administration System (IVAS).
The French company has offered to do the job at a cost of about Tk 86.14 crore. Of the amount, it quoted about Tk 12.47 crore in local currency and $ 9.916 million in foreign currency as the project cost.
The BULL SAS was selected by the NBR as the lowest among the three qualified and responsive bidders. However, some of the bidders raised some allegations for pursuing irregularities in the process.
Officials said once the tender proposal of the BULL SAS is approved by the Cabinet Committee, it will start its work.
About the project, NBR officials said the government has set a timeframe to give an effect to the new VAT law from July 1, 2015. The main objective of the new law is to introduce an automation system in the VAT collection.
At present, all the VAT-related activities except the VAT registration are conducted manually. After the introduction of the new system based on COST software, all the VAT activities will come under an automation system.
As per the NBR plan, all kinds of VAT collection through online will start on July 1, 2015 and the new VAT law will be fully effective by December that year.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) earlier approved Tk 551.58-crore project in this regard. Of the amount, the World Bank will provide about Tk 449.74 crore while the rest will come from the national exchequer.
