Bangladesh's reconditioned vehicle dealers have alleged that National Board of Revenue (NBR) officials are harassing traders and creating unnecessary complications in VAT collection in violation of existing tax laws, threatening to drive businesses to collapse.
At a press conference at the BARVIDA office in Bijoy Nagar on Saturday, leaders of the Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicles Importers and Dealers Association (BARVIDA) said many of their members were considering shutting down operations due to mounting VAT-related harassment.
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“Despite clear VAT laws on the books, officials ignore them entirely and treat traders as if they have come to steal rather than do business,” said BARVIDA Secretary General Riaz Ahmed Khan.
He said members were fully willing to cooperate with the NBR but the field-level harassment they faced was wholly unacceptable.
He called on the NBR chairman and the finance minister to urgently formulate a fair and transparent policy for the automobile trade, warning that failure to act would trigger a serious downturn in the sector.
One leader cited the case of ordinary traders in Chattogram being slapped with penalties of up to Tk 40 million under the pretext of VAT violations, an amount he described as grossly abnormal.
He said such conditions were pushing many businesspeople to the edge of despair, with some even contemplating leaving the country.
In a separate set of demands ahead of the forthcoming national budget, BARVIDA President Abdul Haque called for reducing existing duties on fuel-efficient hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, withdrawing supplementary duty on microbuses used as public transport, and cutting taxes on reconditioned electric vehicles (EVs) imported from Japan.
“If tax relief on reconditioned EV imports is aligned with the government's existing incentives for the electric vehicle industry, the uptake of eco-friendly vehicles will rise significantly,” Abdul Haque said. “This would simultaneously reduce fuel expenditure, ease pressure on foreign exchange reserves, and bring vehicle prices within the reach of middle-income buyers, expanding the market and boosting government revenue.”
BARVIDA leaders argued that a rational tariff structure for the motor vehicle sector was essential to accelerating economic activity, attracting investment, generating employment, and supporting poverty alleviation at a time of broader economic challenge.