Al Amin :
The hotel-restaurants owners and the revenue board officials annoyed over the excessive harassment by the VAT informers, sources said.
They said that the some civilians appointed unofficially as informers by the Customs, Excise and VAT Commissionerate, Dhaka (South), were extorting restaurants accusing them of not using Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFD) provided by the National Board of Revenue (NBR).
Sometimes, the informers harass the customers in the name of checking food bills staying in the restaurants from dawn to dusk, they added, although the traders have yet to be lodged any written complain to the concern authority.
Resulted, the EFD users are losing customers day-by-day, they claimed.
The leaders of the Bangladesh Restaurant Owners’ Association (BROA) said they will lodge a written complain to the NBR chairman very soon.
Imran Hasan, Secretary General of the BROA, told The New Nation, “The NBR is trying to make us thief to cover up its weakness. It is absolutely shameful for the country’s business men as well as for the nation.”
“We want to pay Value-Added Tax (VAT) properly. But the NBR’s rule should be implemented equally. Otherwise, the system will create discrimination,” Hasan said.
On the other hand, several VAT officials, asking not to be named, alleged that the informers, sometimes, intervene on them and snatched official documents from them but the officials can’t do anything as the informers appointed by the high up.
Refusing the allegations, SM Humayun Kabir, Commissioner of VAT Commissionerate, told this correspondent over phone on Saturday, “The businesses are not our opponents. We collect revenue for the sake of the country’s development.”
“Having limited officials, sometimes we send some civilians, not permanent appointee, in order to gather correct information about the traders and our officers do cross-check it to collect actual VAT from them,” he added.
He further said, “If the businesses give us written allegation of harassment specifically, we must take action against the persons or officials. We want to create a hassle-free environment.”
“Some dishonest traders want to void our good initiatives. We can’t tolerate this,” he added.
The restaurants sector is the worst victim of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The country has around 60,000 restaurants and around 30 lakh people are employed in the sector. But almost half of the restaurant owners are counting losses due to the pandemic.
Over 30 per cent restaurants owners have closed their restaurants by losing cash capital, according to the BROA.
“We are counting losses having not the EFDs in all the restaurants. So, the authority should set up EFD machines in all restaurants first and then, they can pressurize us,” Firoz Alam Suman, Joint General Secretary of the BROA.
He informed that the NBR has installed the EFDs at only 5 per cent of the restaurants so far.
