Economic Reporter :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is set to launch Taxpayers Contact Centres and a Central Processing Unit soon to help them in getting instant reply of any queries on the new Value Added Tax (VAT) law.
The new Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act, 2012 will come into effect from July, 2016 where VAT payers will have a good number of queries to cope up with the new system, said officials concerned.
They also hoped that the centre would enhance taxpayers’ services through providing all kind of information relating to the new law.
The revenue authorities have recently awarded a contract to a local firm to obtain the service for Contact Centre and Central Processing Centre.
The NBR signed the contract with Digicon Technologies Ltd in Dhaka on May 15 for the service at a cost of Tk9,04,21,760 which will come from aid grant from government’s development budget. The company will provide services till May 14, 2020.
Under this agreement, the company will establish a centralised point of contact for the taxpayers who require either general information about their obligations under the new VAT law or need specific inquiries over their VAT compliance matter.
The call centres will work to help and encourage VAT payers in transition to new automated online system from the existing manual paper-based system.
The platform will work to answer queries on resolving any difficulty by VAT payers in using the VAT Online System (IVAS-Integrated VAT Administration System) including VAT registration and return submission.
The company will be responsible for ensuring all provisions of the Contact Centre including physical space, servers, CRM software, PCs, networks, internet bandwidth, power backup, computer telephony integration (CTI), hunting numbers, etc.
The revenue authorities will provide a single Bangladesh-wide short code telephone number for use by the Contact Centre.
As per the NBR plan, VAT payers will be able to obtain services from Dhaka and 12 other VAT commissionerates across the country, where the centre will be established under the banner “VAT Online Service Centre.”
The parliament in 2012 had passed the Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act to automate the overall VAT administration to increase revenue collection.
Following the initiative, tax authorities in 2013 undertook the VAT Online Project to ensure a client-friendly and a service-oriented automated system.
Existing and potential new taxpayers will be able to call directly any of the call centres for any query relating to VAT, excise and turnover tax once it comes into effect under the VAT Online System.
The NBR is scheduled to implement new VAT law from July 1, 2016 with an aim to bringing all the procedures including registration, payment, return filing, refund, and legal actions under the online system.
The NBR considers the contact centre service complementary and critical to the successful launch of VAT Online facilities, said NBR officials.
The company will have to provide monthly, quarterly and periodic reports to NBR on call statistics, query or complaint resolution rate, types of queries, etc.
Workloads for the CPC are derived from the expected 200,000 VAT registrations and 60,000 monthly returns, of which initially a substantial portion shall be filed manually and gradually decreasing over time as taxpayers move to online filing, officials said.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is set to launch Taxpayers Contact Centres and a Central Processing Unit soon to help them in getting instant reply of any queries on the new Value Added Tax (VAT) law.
The new Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act, 2012 will come into effect from July, 2016 where VAT payers will have a good number of queries to cope up with the new system, said officials concerned.
They also hoped that the centre would enhance taxpayers’ services through providing all kind of information relating to the new law.
The revenue authorities have recently awarded a contract to a local firm to obtain the service for Contact Centre and Central Processing Centre.
The NBR signed the contract with Digicon Technologies Ltd in Dhaka on May 15 for the service at a cost of Tk9,04,21,760 which will come from aid grant from government’s development budget. The company will provide services till May 14, 2020.
Under this agreement, the company will establish a centralised point of contact for the taxpayers who require either general information about their obligations under the new VAT law or need specific inquiries over their VAT compliance matter.
The call centres will work to help and encourage VAT payers in transition to new automated online system from the existing manual paper-based system.
The platform will work to answer queries on resolving any difficulty by VAT payers in using the VAT Online System (IVAS-Integrated VAT Administration System) including VAT registration and return submission.
The company will be responsible for ensuring all provisions of the Contact Centre including physical space, servers, CRM software, PCs, networks, internet bandwidth, power backup, computer telephony integration (CTI), hunting numbers, etc.
The revenue authorities will provide a single Bangladesh-wide short code telephone number for use by the Contact Centre.
As per the NBR plan, VAT payers will be able to obtain services from Dhaka and 12 other VAT commissionerates across the country, where the centre will be established under the banner “VAT Online Service Centre.”
The parliament in 2012 had passed the Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act to automate the overall VAT administration to increase revenue collection.
Following the initiative, tax authorities in 2013 undertook the VAT Online Project to ensure a client-friendly and a service-oriented automated system.
Existing and potential new taxpayers will be able to call directly any of the call centres for any query relating to VAT, excise and turnover tax once it comes into effect under the VAT Online System.
The NBR is scheduled to implement new VAT law from July 1, 2016 with an aim to bringing all the procedures including registration, payment, return filing, refund, and legal actions under the online system.
The NBR considers the contact centre service complementary and critical to the successful launch of VAT Online facilities, said NBR officials.
The company will have to provide monthly, quarterly and periodic reports to NBR on call statistics, query or complaint resolution rate, types of queries, etc.
Workloads for the CPC are derived from the expected 200,000 VAT registrations and 60,000 monthly returns, of which initially a substantial portion shall be filed manually and gradually decreasing over time as taxpayers move to online filing, officials said.
