Published :
Updated :
For all latest news, follow The Financial Express Google News channel.
Most of the large companies that contribute higher revenues are still submitting VAT returns manually -- more than a year after the new law came into force.
Less than 50 per cent big companies have submitted their VAT returns online, according to data of the Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) under the National Board of Revenue (NBR).
Out of 142 large companies, only 67 have preferred to file online VAT returns.
Even the highest VAT contributors representing tobacco, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, consumer products and banking sectors have yet to submit their returns online due to the flaws in the system.
The new law has online-based provisions that need digitisation of both businesses and the VAT department.
Talking to the FE, a number of large taxpayers complained of the problems that prevented them from submitting returns online.
In a recent letter to the project director of VAT Online Project (VOP), the LTU commissioner Wahida Rahman Chowdhury said her unit is aware of the sector-wise problems of the large taxpayers.
Unless the VAT online project addresses the design flaws in the return module and the capacity constraints, large taxpayers will continue to face the problem, she said in an attempt to shift the responsibility.
Referring to a number of banks, including Standard Chartered, HSBC and Islami Bank, she said the lenders are finding it difficult to sort out digital filing.
The system is generating auto penalty for submitting returns of previous months, which is creating the problem, she added.
She also let the project chief know that the large taxpayers get limited time to enter the documents into the system and cannot fill out the sub-forms.
Some large pharmaceuticals companies such as Square, Beximco, Incepta, Healthcare, and Sanofi have thousands of products.
"Due to the absence of real time input system, the companies have to give manual inputs of all sales and purchase information within 15 days of every month," Ms Chowdhury said.
As per VAT law, VAT registered businesses have to submit returns by the 15th of every month. The companies also cannot fill out thousands of HS codes of the products in the sub-form as per the instruction of the online form, she wrote.
For British American Tobacco, Bangladesh (BATB), the value option in the sub-form has the capacity for only 10 digits while the company pays a large amount of revenue due to its high tax incidence.
The tax payment figure of the company cannot be entered in the online field.
The company used to submit more than 100 chalans or invoices every month, but the system allows uploading only 10 files.
"There is no option to upload excel sheet in the sub-form so all data have to enter manually, which is quite impossible," Ms Chowdhury said. For Unilever Bangladesh, the company has more than 500 products and it is almost impossible for the company to upload each of the information in the system.
The LTU letter also identified the problems faced by telecom operators like Grameenphone, Robi and Banglalink.
Responding to the FE's question, project director Kazi Mustafizur Rahman acknowledged it is time-consuming for addressing the sector-wise problems individually for online return module.
"All of the sectors including tobacco, banks, pharmaceuticals, and telecom operators are facing different types of problems, which we are trying to resolve," he said.