NBR gets Tk 47cr surcharge from mobile users, fund still unused

The government has not yet formulated policy on utilisation and management of the revenue it collects from mobile phone and tobacco sectors in the form of surcharge.
In the absence of the policy, the fund collected as development surcharge from the mobile telephone sector and health and environment surcharge from the tobacco sector has remained unused, officials of the National Board of Revenue said.
They said that there should be policy and planning for proper utilisation of the surcharge which were paid by the consumers who had to count more money in getting services and products due to the imposition of the charge.
The NBR received Tk 47 crore in development surcharge from the country’s six mobile operators in three months till May after the surcharge was imposed on March 8, 2016.
The revenue board imposed one per cent development surcharge on mobile phone services including talk-time, messages, internet uses and other services provided by the mobile operators through SIM and RUIM cards in March 8, 2016, after the government in November, 2015 had enacted the Development Surcharge and Levy (Imposition and Collection) Act-2015.
Earlier, in July 2014 it imposed one per cent health and environment surcharge on all kinds of tobacco products including cigarette, bidi, gul, zarda and other smoking and chewing tobacco products.
There is no available data at the NBR on collection of health surcharge.
The value-added tax wing of the NBR is responsible for collecting development surcharge from the six mobile phone companies and health surcharge from the tobacco companies operating in the country.
The government was supposed to formulate policies on expenditure of the money derived from the two sectors as non-tax revenue.
NBR officials said that the health ministry had formulated a draft health surcharge management policy.
The health surcharge will be spent for implementing programmes aimed to control and discourage the use of tobacco products and prevent tobacco-related health hazards in line with the instruction of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, they said.
On the other hand, it is not clear yet to NBR officials about the sectors in which the collected development surcharge will be spent though initially finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said it would be spent in development of education, and information and telecommunication infrastructure in remote areas in the country.
Officials of the revenue board said that the NBR was only the collector of the surcharges and regularly deposited the fund to the government exchequer as non-tax revenue.
The NBR estimates an amount of Tk 140 crore in a year as development surcharge from the use of mobile phone services.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net