Dhaka: Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCC) on Monday called for reducing VAT to 7 percent from the existing 15 percent and raising non-taxable income ceiling to Tk 3.5 lakh from Tk 2.5 lakh.

A DCCI delegation, led by its president Abul Kasem Khan, placed its 49 proposals before Chairman of National Board of Revenue (NBR) Md Nojibur Rahman at a pre-budget discussion held at the NBR in the afternoon.

The trade body proposed the NBR to introduce smart tax and smart VAT cards.

“We’re recommending that the VAT should be 7 percent instead of 15 percent in the new VAT Act 2012, which to be implemented from next July,” the DCCI president said.

Noting that now the tax card is provided at limited scale, he said the volume of the tax card needs to be increased and the card can be turned into electronic smart card as well. Like the tax card, the VAT smart card should be introduced as only 30,000 BIN holders out of 8,40,000 ones give VAT, he added.

Abul Kasem proposed Tk 3.5 lakh as tax free-income limit for individuals and Tk 4.75 lakh for war-wounded freedom fighters.

He proposed reducing corporate tax rate for merchant bank to 35 percent from the existing 37.5 percent, 30 percent for non-public trade companies, 22.5 percent for public trade companies and 32.5 percent for brokerage operations.

The DCCI president said VAT exemption on internet use will help materialise the dream of Digital Bangladesh soon. “Frequent changes in duty structure sometimes hamper the momentum of industrialisation. So, the DCCI has requested government to formulate a static duty structure at least for 3- 5 years.”

For small traders, DCCI demanded ‘No VAT’ up to Tk 50 lakh turnover and 3 percent VAT for the turnover from above Tk 50 lakh to Tk 1.2 crore.

The NBR chairman said the tax fair and tax week systems of Bangladesh are acclaimed by many countries. “We’re going to take innovative measures. We want to organise tax camps even in remote areas such as union and municipality levels to widen the tax net,” he said.

DCCI Senior Vice President Kamrul Islam, Vice President Hossain A Sikder, Directors Asif A Chowdhury, Akber Hakim, Imran Ahmed, K Atique-e-Rabbani, KMN Manjurul Hoque, Mamun Akbar, Md Alauddin Malik, former Senior Vice President Haider Ahmed Khan and Secretary General AHM Rezaul Kabir were also present.