Bangladesh to issue temporary registration number for foreigners

Bangladesh tax authority has decided to develop a data-bank with issuing temporary registration numbers (TRN) to foreigners coming to Bangladesh to track the duration of their stay in the country.
Officials of the National Board of Revenue said that the TRN would be used to trail the foreigners from their entrance to departure from the country to check whether they have paid income tax, if they earn here.
According to the income tax law, a foreign national is required to open income tax file if he or she lives in the country for 90 days in a year.
Foreigners will also have to furnish income tax clearance certificate at the immigration check points for leaving the country.

But in most cases, foreign nationals working in Bangladesh leave the country just two or three days before 90 days of their stay in the country and few days after they again enter to the country to avoid opening income tax file and evade tax.

The proposed data-bank to be maintained under a customized software system will help the revenue board to trace their movement to and out of the country, he said adding that such suspected foreigners will come under special monitoring of the tax authorities.
Currently, the NBR has no mechanism to trace the duration of stay of a foreigner in the country and crosscheck the data bank of other agencies.
The NBR has recently formed an 11-memebr technical committee headed by income tax commissioner Sanjit Kumar Biswas to coordinate procurement of the data-bank maintenance software.
The committee will coordinate hiring a software developer firm and supervise the outsourcing process.
The data bank will be interlinked with the immigration authorities and the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority to detect the tax evading foreigners.
Under the plan, a TRN will be provided to a foreigner while immigration department will collect his or her particulars.
Income tax officials deployed at the income tax desks at immigration points will assist the immigration officials.
Many developed countries follow the procedures to prevent tax evasion by foreign nationals.
According to various sources, there are several lakh of foreigners mainly from India, Sri Lanka and some western countries living and working in Bangladesh in readymade garment industry, buying houses, IT and manufacturing sectors.
Of them, only on an average 12,000 have income tax files with the income tax offices across the country and around 8,000 file tax returns annually.
Around 12,000 foreigners work in the country taking work permit.

Regional transport deal raises pollution fears in Bangladesh

Regional transport deal raises pollution fears in Bangladesh

Experts and activists in Bangladesh are warning that environmental issues were not properly addressed in the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal Motor Vehicle Agreement, commonly known as BBIN MVA signed on 15 June 2015 in Thimphu, Bhutan. Now apprehensions of increased environmental degradation, air and sound pollution, traffic congestion, deforestation, discharge of waste, loss of agriculture land and other problems are coming to the fore.
Environmental activists, economists and trade leaders of Bangladesh said that the governments need to pay attention to the environmental impact of the huge numbers of transport vehicles which will be suddenly introduced to its roads. Maybe nothing demonstrates how these issues have been neglected more than the fact that no estimates of how much traffic will increase have been made. Therefore no straightforward solution presents itself.
Given the lack of figures, experts are not calling for an outright ban. Instead, they suggested that the Bangladesh government should impose the right price to offset environmental degradation due to the implementation of the agreement, which would be in line with the additional pollution. This could be done as a congestion or pollution surcharge. The funds collected from this could then be used to protect the environment, they told thethirdpole.net.
These demands have gained more prominence since truckers, environmentalists and politicians in Bhutan have opposed the ratification of the agreement in the Parliament afraid of pollution and environmental destruction.
See: Bhutan’s opposition protests regional transport deal
Opportunity for seamless connectivity
Under the agreement, the signatories would allow vehicles – whether personal vehicles or transport vehicles – to ply along the proposed six routes across the four countries. The deal is supposed to pave the way for a free movement of people and goods within these four countries, reducing the cost of doing business and promoting economic integration of the region.

The proposed routes for BBIN MVA [image by Dhaka Tribune]

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is considered the least integrated region in the world in terms of trade and connectivity. Intra-regional trade volume stood at USD 49.6 billion in 2015 which was only 5% of the region’s global trade. Even this was a great improvement over previous years. In 2005, the volume of trade was only USD 16.64 billion. Transforming these transport routes into economic corridors could potentially increase regional trade within South Asia by almost 60% and with the rest of the world by over 30%, the transport ministries of the four countries have claimed. The agreement was also supposed to facilitate the much-talked “multi-modal connectivity”. This would include linking railways and waterways as well boosting cooperation in other areas like trans-boundary water sharing, establishing sub-regional energy grids and export of hydro-electricity.
The president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Abdul Matlub Ahmad attended the BBIN Business Forum and Expo, held in West Bengal in India, earlier this month. Afterwards Matlub told thethirdpole.net that the BBIN motor vehicle agreement would boost economic development, further explore trade and investment opportunity of the sub-region and increase people to people contact.
The leading trade organisations from the four countries were present at the Expo, and decided to set up an economic zone involving areas from the four countries. In a way this would hark back to the pre-colonial period when the Panchagarh region – now divided between the countries – functioned as an economic corridor. These would include Bangladesh’s Panchagarh in Bangladesh, Siliguri in India, Biratnagar in Nepal and Phuntsholing in Bhutan.
As an example of the scope for cooperation, readymade garments will be manufactured in the economic zone using Indian fabrics, the cutting and making process will happen in Bangladesh, and exported from Nepal to countries such as the United States, with whom Bangladesh does not have duty-free market access, he said.
The agreement was supposed to come into force from January 2016 but Bhutan delayed ratifying the agreement amid domestic opposition. Bhutan finally ratified the deal on 21 June, and officials from the Bangladesh government are pushing for the four countries to expedite the signing of protocols and procedures required to make the deal functional.
Environmental concerns
Not everybody is that enthusiastic. According to the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a leading independent think-tank in Bangladesh, the issue of environmental protection has not been spelt out clearly in the agreement. There is merely a condition that says a vehicle will have to carry a valid “pollution under control” certificate issued by a contracting party.
Mustafizur Rahman, the executive director of CPD and head of the study team, told thethirdpole.net that the increase of vehicles on the road will naturally raise pollution levels, and this has to be addressed. Additionally agricultural and forest lands will be converted into roads to facilitate the increased numbers of vehicles from the contracting countries, causing deforestation.
These concerns were behind the opposition to the agreement in Bhutan, he said. And the Bhutanese parliament responded by ratifying the agreement in a conservative way, by not allowing free flow of foreign vehicles into the country, and with an option of regulating the cross border movement of vehicles. The Bhutanese way of addressing the possible problems has given those in Bangladesh a way of also approaching the issue.
Officials within the Bangladesh Environment and Forest Ministry and Department of Environment told thethirdpole.net  that the government had not consulted them on the agreement. Kamal Uddin Ahmed, the Environment Secretary, said the government is supposed to take solicit opinions from the ministry on issues related to the environment. He could not confirm whether the ministry had ever given such an opinion on the BBIN agreement.
Quazi Sarwar Imtiaz Hashmi, the additional director general at the Department of Environment (DoE), was more categorical. He said that the government did not get any environmental clearance, nor did it ask for an opinion from his department. He suggested that if the participating vehicles met EU approved standards for exhaust emissions and other pollutants, then that would go a long way in dealing with extra air pollution.
Professor emeritus Ainun Nishat of BRAC University, who is also Bangladesh’s former country representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) told thethirdpole.net that along with direct environmental pollution there are some other concerns including possible smuggling and human trafficking which will affect overall social environment of the country.
He suggested that the government should impose appropriate charges on vehicles for environmental pollution. The movement of vehicles, particularly cargo vehicles with higher load capacities, should be regulated. The number of vehicles, time and frequency of movement should be controlled as Bangladesh’s roads are not designed for heavy loaded cargo vehicles, he said.
According to a survey of the country’s Roads and Highways Department, the government will have to spend eight times more than its yearly allocation to keep its road network fit for smooth traffic movement in the coming five years as nearly 45% of its surveyed roads are in poor condition.
With these significant challenges before them, the Bangladeshis are taking another hard look at the new motor vehicle agreement. Inspired by their Bhutanese counterparts, they may just tweak the agreement to make it safer for their environment too.

Regional transport deal raises pollution fears in Bangladesh

Regional transport deal raises pollution fears in Bangladesh

Experts and activists in Bangladesh are warning that environmental issues were not properly addressed in the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal Motor Vehicle Agreement, commonly known as BBIN MVA signed on 15 June 2015 in Thimphu, Bhutan. Now apprehensions of increased environmental degradation, air and sound pollution, traffic congestion, deforestation, discharge of waste, loss of agriculture land and other problems are coming to the fore.
Environmental activists, economists and trade leaders of Bangladesh said that the governments need to pay attention to the environmental impact of the huge numbers of transport vehicles which will be suddenly introduced to its roads. Maybe nothing demonstrates how these issues have been neglected more than the fact that no estimates of how much traffic will increase have been made. Therefore no straightforward solution presents itself.
Given the lack of figures, experts are not calling for an outright ban. Instead, they suggested that the Bangladesh government should impose the right price to offset environmental degradation due to the implementation of the agreement, which would be in line with the additional pollution. This could be done as a congestion or pollution surcharge. The funds collected from this could then be used to protect the environment, they told thethirdpole.net.
These demands have gained more prominence since truckers, environmentalists and politicians in Bhutan have opposed the ratification of the agreement in the Parliament afraid of pollution and environmental destruction.
See: Bhutan’s opposition protests regional transport deal
Opportunity for seamless connectivity
Under the agreement, the signatories would allow vehicles – whether personal vehicles or transport vehicles – to ply along the proposed six routes across the four countries. The deal is supposed to pave the way for a free movement of people and goods within these four countries, reducing the cost of doing business and promoting economic integration of the region.

The proposed routes for BBIN MVA [image by Dhaka Tribune]

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is considered the least integrated region in the world in terms of trade and connectivity. Intra-regional trade volume stood at USD 49.6 billion in 2015 which was only 5% of the region’s global trade. Even this was a great improvement over previous years. In 2005, the volume of trade was only USD 16.64 billion. Transforming these transport routes into economic corridors could potentially increase regional trade within South Asia by almost 60% and with the rest of the world by over 30%, the transport ministries of the four countries have claimed. The agreement was also supposed to facilitate the much-talked “multi-modal connectivity”. This would include linking railways and waterways as well boosting cooperation in other areas like trans-boundary water sharing, establishing sub-regional energy grids and export of hydro-electricity.
The president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Abdul Matlub Ahmad attended the BBIN Business Forum and Expo, held in West Bengal in India, earlier this month. Afterwards Matlub told thethirdpole.net that the BBIN motor vehicle agreement would boost economic development, further explore trade and investment opportunity of the sub-region and increase people to people contact.
The leading trade organisations from the four countries were present at the Expo, and decided to set up an economic zone involving areas from the four countries. In a way this would hark back to the pre-colonial period when the Panchagarh region – now divided between the countries – functioned as an economic corridor. These would include Bangladesh’s Panchagarh in Bangladesh, Siliguri in India, Biratnagar in Nepal and Phuntsholing in Bhutan.
As an example of the scope for cooperation, readymade garments will be manufactured in the economic zone using Indian fabrics, the cutting and making process will happen in Bangladesh, and exported from Nepal to countries such as the United States, with whom Bangladesh does not have duty-free market access, he said.
The agreement was supposed to come into force from January 2016 but Bhutan delayed ratifying the agreement amid domestic opposition. Bhutan finally ratified the deal on 21 June, and officials from the Bangladesh government are pushing for the four countries to expedite the signing of protocols and procedures required to make the deal functional.
Environmental concerns
Not everybody is that enthusiastic. According to the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a leading independent think-tank in Bangladesh, the issue of environmental protection has not been spelt out clearly in the agreement. There is merely a condition that says a vehicle will have to carry a valid “pollution under control” certificate issued by a contracting party.
Mustafizur Rahman, the executive director of CPD and head of the study team, told thethirdpole.net that the increase of vehicles on the road will naturally raise pollution levels, and this has to be addressed. Additionally agricultural and forest lands will be converted into roads to facilitate the increased numbers of vehicles from the contracting countries, causing deforestation.
These concerns were behind the opposition to the agreement in Bhutan, he said. And the Bhutanese parliament responded by ratifying the agreement in a conservative way, by not allowing free flow of foreign vehicles into the country, and with an option of regulating the cross border movement of vehicles. The Bhutanese way of addressing the possible problems has given those in Bangladesh a way of also approaching the issue.
Officials within the Bangladesh Environment and Forest Ministry and Department of Environment told thethirdpole.net  that the government had not consulted them on the agreement. Kamal Uddin Ahmed, the Environment Secretary, said the government is supposed to take solicit opinions from the ministry on issues related to the environment. He could not confirm whether the ministry had ever given such an opinion on the BBIN agreement.
Quazi Sarwar Imtiaz Hashmi, the additional director general at the Department of Environment (DoE), was more categorical. He said that the government did not get any environmental clearance, nor did it ask for an opinion from his department. He suggested that if the participating vehicles met EU approved standards for exhaust emissions and other pollutants, then that would go a long way in dealing with extra air pollution.
Professor emeritus Ainun Nishat of BRAC University, who is also Bangladesh’s former country representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) told thethirdpole.net that along with direct environmental pollution there are some other concerns including possible smuggling and human trafficking which will affect overall social environment of the country.
He suggested that the government should impose appropriate charges on vehicles for environmental pollution. The movement of vehicles, particularly cargo vehicles with higher load capacities, should be regulated. The number of vehicles, time and frequency of movement should be controlled as Bangladesh’s roads are not designed for heavy loaded cargo vehicles, he said.
According to a survey of the country’s Roads and Highways Department, the government will have to spend eight times more than its yearly allocation to keep its road network fit for smooth traffic movement in the coming five years as nearly 45% of its surveyed roads are in poor condition.
With these significant challenges before them, the Bangladeshis are taking another hard look at the new motor vehicle agreement. Inspired by their Bhutanese counterparts, they may just tweak the agreement to make it safer for their environment too.

BPC seeks NBR info on pvt cos’ fuel oil import

Suspecting that private-sector importers of petroleum oils and condensate illegally sell the products to filling stations, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation has sought from the National Board of Revenue data of the private importers of the commodities.
The state-owned corporation requires the data also for determining the actual demand for fuel oils in the country as it cannot do the job due to not having accurate data of petroleum products imported by the private-sector businesses.
The BPC urgently needs the statistics of import of fuel oils like diesel, furnace oil and condensate to assess the country’s actual demand for energy products precisely and identify the illegal supply sources of the filling stations, agents and packed point dealers of the products, the corporation said in a letter it sent recently to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division of the power, energy and mineral resources ministry.
As per law, only BPC has the mandate to sell fuel oils to filling stations, agents and packed point dealers.
The BPC do the job through its three oil distribution and marketing companies — Padma, Meghna and Jamuna oil companies.
Private-sector importers and refiners are prohibited to sell the products on the open market.
Besides the BPC, private-sector power generation companies import fuel oils to run their power plants while private fractionate plants import condensate to refine oils and to sell those to the BPC.
The Energy and Mineral Resources Division last month forwarded the letter to the revenue board seeking the statistics including names of importers, names of the imported products, quantity of the products and time of import in the fiscal years of 2014-2015 and 2015-2016.
In the letter, the BPC said that they had no import data of fuel oils and condensate imported by the private-sector businesses that was causing problems in setting the actual demand for the products in the country.
It is also facing difficulty to find out the actual production of private refiners as it has no data about the import of condensate by them (private importers), it said.
NBR officials said that they would provide the data after getting import statistics from the country’s two river customs houses — Chittagong and Mongla.
There are widespread allegations that many filling stations sell substandard fuel oils mainly diesel supplied illegally by the private-sector importers and refiners.
Such activities cause revenue loss for the government as well as harm the automobile engines.
The BPC on several occasions issued notices to many filling stations warning them against the illegal practice.

temporary registration numbers to foreigners coming to Bangladesh

The National Board of Revenue has decided to develop a data-bank with issuing temporary registration numbers (TRN) to foreigners coming to Bangladesh to track the duration of their stay in the country.
Officials of the revenue board said that the TRN would be used to trail the foreigners from their entrance to departure from the country to check whether they have paid income tax, if they earn here.
According to the income tax law, a foreign national is required to open income tax file if he or she lives in the country for 90 days in a year.
Foreigners will also have to furnish income tax clearance certificate at the immigration check points for leaving the country.
‘But in most cases, foreign nationals working in Bangladesh leave the country just two or three days before 90 days of their stay in the country and few days after they again enter to the country to avoid opening income tax file and evade tax,’ a high official of the NBR told New Age on Sunday.
The proposed data-bank to be maintained under a customized software system will help the revenue board to trace their movement to and out of the country, he said adding that such suspected foreigners will come under special monitoring of the tax authorities.
Currently, the NBR has no mechanism to trace the duration of stay of a foreigner in the country and crosscheck the data bank of other agencies.
The NBR has recently formed an 11-memebr technical committee headed by income tax commissioner Sanjit Kumar Biswas to coordinate procurement of the data-bank maintenance software.
The committee will coordinate hiring a software developer firm and supervise the outsourcing process.
The data bank will be interlinked with the immigration authorities and the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority to detect the tax evading foreigners.
A NBR official said that currently BIDA, formerly Board of Investment, maintains a database of foreign nationals who take work permit from the body while immigration department also collects the information from foreigners while they enter the country.
But there is no comprehensive data bank for tax collection purpose resulting in huge tax evasion by the foreign nationals, he said.
Under the plan, a TRN will be provided to a foreigner while immigration department will collect his or her particulars.
Income tax officials deployed at the income tax desks at immigration points will assist the immigration officials.
Many developed countries follow the procedures to prevent tax evasion by foreign nationals.
According to various sources, there are several lakh of foreigners mainly from India, Sri Lanka and some western countries living and working in Bangladesh in readymade garment industry, buying houses, IT and manufacturing sectors.
Of them, only on an average 12,000 have income tax files with the income tax offices across the country and around 8,000 file tax returns annually.
Around 12,000 foreigners work in the country taking work permit from the BIDA.The National Board of Revenue has decided to develop a data-bank with issuing temporary registration numbers (TRN) to foreigners coming to Bangladesh to track the duration of their stay in the country. Officials of the revenue board said that the TRN would be used to trail the foreigners from their entrance to departure from the country to check whether they have paid income tax, if they earn here. According to the income tax law, a foreign national is required to open income tax file if he or she lives in the country for 90 days in a year. Foreigners will also have to furnish income tax clearance certificate at the immigration check points for leaving the country. ‘But in most cases, foreign nationals working in Bangladesh leave the country just two or three days before 90 days of their stay in the country and few days after they again enter to the country to avoid opening income tax file and evade tax,’ a high official of the NBR told New Age on Sunday. The proposed data-bank to be maintained under a customized software system will help the revenue board to trace their movement to and out of the country, he said adding that such suspected foreigners will come under special monitoring of the tax authorities. Currently, the NBR has no mechanism to trace the duration of stay of a foreigner in the country and crosscheck the data bank of other agencies. The NBR has recently formed an 11-memebr technical committee headed by income tax commissioner Sanjit Kumar Biswas to coordinate procurement of the data-bank maintenance software. The committee will coordinate hiring a software developer firm and supervise the outsourcing process. The data bank will be interlinked with the immigration authorities and the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority to detect the tax evading foreigners. A NBR official said that currently BIDA, formerly Board of Investment, maintains a database of foreign nationals who take work permit from the body while immigration department also collects the information from foreigners while they enter the country. But there is no comprehensive data bank for tax collection purpose resulting in huge tax evasion by the foreign nationals, he said. Under the plan, a TRN will be provided to a foreigner while immigration department will collect his or her particulars. Income tax officials deployed at the income tax desks at immigration points will assist the immigration officials. Many developed countries follow the procedures to prevent tax evasion by foreign nationals. According to various sources, there are several lakh of foreigners mainly from India, Sri Lanka and some western countries living and working in Bangladesh in readymade garment industry, buying houses, IT and manufacturing sectors. Of them, only on an average 12,000 have income tax files with the income tax offices across the country and around 8,000 file tax returns annually. Around 12,000 foreigners work in the country taking work permit from the BIDA.

Bangladesh guidelines for fill-up income tax returns for fiscal year 2015-2016

http://nbr.gov.bd/contents/publication/105.pdf

symposium on Buddhism and tourism to be held in Dhaka on October

Bangladesh and UNWTO (World Tourism Organization of the United Nations) will jointly organize two international events titled ‘Symposium related to Buddhism among Asian Countries and Workshop on Buddhist Circuit in Dhaka on October, 2015.

Tourism ministers and high officials of China, Korea, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Bhutan, Nepal, Laos and India are scheduled to attend at the programs.

Secretary General of UNWTO and tourism experts from around the globe may also attend the programs.

The symposium and workshop may be arranged on October 28, 2015 in Dhaka.