National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan on Tuesday said if the business people come to a consensus, the government wants to implement a single, universal Value Added Tax (VAT) rate in the country.

“If necessary, we will lower the rate, it should be a single rate, if the business people come to a consensus,” he said while holding a pre-budget meeting with the leaders of FICCI and MCCI at NBR conference room.

The revenue collecting chief said that at best there might be two VAT rates. “If the service sector thinks that the rate is harsh for them, then we can lower the rate for them, but we have to bring the VAT rate into a discipline,” he said.

The NBR Chairman said that if the VAT rate can be fixed at a single rate and if everyone takes input VAT Credit, there will be no need to pay VAT 15 percent and 7.5 percent.

“You will pay VAT on the basis of your value addition, we have to go towards that direction,” he said.

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He said that in 2012 the government wanted to formulate the VAT Law, later it was implemented in 2019, but faced a strong protest from the business people.

“Later we deviated from our commitment, we implemented the VAT Law in a different manner, our commitment was to implement the single VAT rate,” he said.

Abdur Rahman Khan mentioned that VAT should remain as VAT. “If every business people agreed then we will implement the single VAT rate,” he added.

He also said that the power of the VAT system, everyone will take their input VAT credit, the power of VAT System which will be account based, is totally different from the present system.

The government issued the "Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025" and "The Excises and Salt Act (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025" on January 9.

Later, facing serious protest and considering the requests of various professional organizations, civil society and stakeholders, in the larger public interest, the NBR waived or reduced the imposed the VAT rate from a good number of products, good and services.