Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is likely to reduce Value-Added Tax (VAT) and Tax on edible oil to keep its prices stable in the market.
The risen of the edible oil have already hit record high in the local market causing huge discontent to the consumers.
The traders are selling the edible oil at high prices despite adequate supply of the key cooking ingredient in the markets.
Experts, however, said that not the consumers, but the dishonest traders are being benefited from the duty exemption.
According to an official data, the NBR collected Tk 1,800 crore revenues from the import of the crude edible oil in the last fiscal year and Tk 1,700 in the first seven months of the current year.
Mohammed Mustafa Haider, Director of the T K Group of Industries, told The New Nation, “A fall in edible price in local market is uncertain at the moment, when its price is high in the international markets.”
“In fact, the price is likely to increase further, if the crude edible oil is not imported from Cambodia soon,” he added.
Biswajit Saha, General Manager of City Group, said that they are selling edible oil at the price fixed by the government recently, despite the international price is higher than it.
“The Commerce Ministry has assured us they will re-fix the price sooner. We will hold another meeting with the ministry after 15 days and then the price will re-adjust considering the market price,” he said.
If the NBR implements the proposals of the Tariff Commission, the price may decline, he said.
An NBR official whishing his anonymity, however, said they are going through the proposals of the Tariff Commission but yet to be reached any concrete decision in this regard.
Normally, NBR exempts taxes when prices of essential commodities have become volatile in the market. But the tax cuts have no effect on the commodity prices.
In fact the dishonest traders are taking advantage of the tax exemption and the government is losing huge amount of revenue every year, the NBR officials said.
Some dishonest traders and importers are misusing the tax exemption facilities for their own interest, they added.
Currently, the import price of crude oil is around Tk 106000 per tonne and as per the existing rules, the importers are still paying 25 per cent VAT and Tax after reduction of 5 per cent Advance Tax at import stage. As a result, the importers are to pay around Tk 25,000 per tonne as taxes. In addition, the refine cost will be added with the price.
During the July-January period, the palm oil was imported 5 lakh 25 thousand 208 tonnes, which was 8 lakh 76 thousand 435 tonnes in the same period of the last year.
On the other hand, 3 lakh 67 thousand 936 tonnes of crude soybean oil was imported in July-January, which was 3 lakh 42 thousand 335 tonnes in the same period of the last year.
Golam Rahman, President of the Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh (CAB), said, “I don’t think that the government has taken any effective steps so far to control the prices of essential commodities through imposing proper taxes.”
“Always the dishonest traders have become facilitated from the tax exemption,” he added.
He further said the activities of these unscrupulous traders can be stopped through close monitoring of the supply of goods.
