The country’s businesses will mandatorily have to update their business information with the NBR’s online VAT server to keep their electronic Business Identification (e-BIN) active. The National Board of Revenue has set a timeframe until July 31 next for those who earlier obtained nine-digit e-BIN, mostly known as VAT registration, to update their information.
Tax officials said, if any business fails to update business information within the certain period, NBR’s VAT Online Project (VOP) would deactivate the e-BIN of that business. If BIN is deactivated, a trader would not be able to carry out his or her business activities. A senior official of VOP told Bangladesh Post, that they, as per the newly enacted VAT and Supplementary Duty Act, some new features have been incorporated in the VAT online server.
That is why businesses must update their business information aligned with the newly incorporated systems, he said. VOP officials said, the move would exponentially exclude the fake BINs taken by the unscrupulous traders earlier. Currently, there are some 1.71 lakh e-BIN holders in the country of which 1.66 have taken e-BIN as VAT payers, and the rest enlisted as turnover taxpayers.
As per the new move, the businesses will have to include all their necessary business information, including accurate address of head office and branches, export, import, major machinery and so on. The fake BIN holders will be suspended, as they will not be able to include all these updated information, VAT officials believe.
As per the new move, a trader will have to sign up to the VOP server and fill up VAT/Mushak form-2.1 to obtain a unique BIN against all of their trading. Earlier, the businesses had to fill up VAT/Mushak form-2.2 for obtaining separate BINs against the branch offices. VAT officials said, as per the new move both the Mushak form-2.1 and 2.2 will be merged into VAT/Mushak form-2.1 and all the business activities will be operated only under this single BIN.
If any business entity has multiple branches, it will also have to conduct all business activities under this single BIN. The NBR opened its VAT Online Project March 2017 and since then has offered the traders to obtain instant e-BIN applying through the VOP server. The businesses then could avail e-BIN within a few hours after submitting applications to the VOP server.
However, VAT commissionerates later found serious irregularities in this regard, detecting many fake BINs. The government officially implemented the VAT and supplementary Duty Act-2012 on July 1 last incorporating four VAT rates and few special rates. The NBR is now upgrading its VOP server aligned with this newly amended law as it initially launched the server incorporating a single 15 percent VAT rate system.
