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Traders stave off electronic cash register

City Correspondent
A divisive policy to enforce the use of electronic cash registers at small and medium retail businesses in the city has been postponed until January next year.
Originally scheduled to go into effect from this July, implementation of the policy was delayed to give the shop owners an extra six months to comply with the authorities' efforts to ensure collection of value added tax (VAT) from the retailers, sources said.
The delay came in the light of views and protests from the shop owners," said a NBR spokesperson. "They [shop owners] complained that the new policy is being enforced without considering their inconveniences," he said.
The revised schedule will see the National Board of Revenue (NBR) enforce the new policy starting from January next year when grocery stores, restaurants, community centres, beauty salons, sweetmeat stores, fast food outlets, furniture shops, department and general stores will have to use electronic cash registers for everyday transactions.
The decision to mandate electronic cash registers was taken in October last year in a bid to ensure that small and medium enterprises collect VAT properly from their customers and deposit it to the exchequer.
The manual accounting currently used at the retail outlets leaves room for tax evasion by deceiving VAT inspectors and this newsystem would eliminate that scope, believe the authorities.
Eventually, the policy would be mandatory for all commercial businesses, sources said adding that non-compliance with the policy' would result in fines and even shutting down of the retail outlet under the section 37 of the VAT act.
NBR officials believe that the added six months would be adequate for the shop owners to purchase their cash registers and get acquainted with its uses.
However, not all storeowners seem to agree with this. They fear the new policy will push up their costs.
"Unlike in the western coun-
tries where there are only a handful of distributors and retailers, we have hundreds of thousands of them. Many of these stores are bound to have a hard time to afford electronic cash registers," said Abul Hashem, a grocery store owner at Badda.
Hasnat, a restaurant owner at Uttara, echoed Hashem, saying, "A standard cash register comes at a price of around Tk 40,000 to Tk 50,000. We have to cough up at least around Tk 20,000 for even an inferior quality cash register. So, they [the authorities) should keep in mind that a huge number of small businesses are owned by the less affluent section of the society.” "Not everyone may afford that expense. Small retail outlets should not be subjected to this mandatory requirement," he said adding the authorities should specify in detail which medium and large trades need to maintain cash registers.
However, the NBR officials believe that the retailers have enough time and money to keep cash registers.
"As we decided to enforce electronic cash registers over seven months back, many of the stores are supposed to have cash registers by now," said an NBR official. "Now they have an additional six months for that. I do not understand why they can't
spend around Tk 20,000 [on a register). It sounds quite reasonable in terms of the money they make."
"The fact that there is no import duty or VAT on electronic cash registers, would make things easier for them [retailers). Also, by the time the policy is enforced, there will be quite a few cash register dealers in the market. Therefore, the price is sure to godown bythen,” hesaid.
While there has been a series of protests from many storeowners, a good number of retailers in the city still appear to be unaware about this new scheme. Most of them do not even have the slightest idea what electronic cash registers are, how to operate them or where to buy them.
"It does sound more convenient rather than the usual manual bookkeeping system. But I have no idea how cash registers work or where to get one," said Shankar Chandra Dash, a stationary storeowner at Banani.
According to sources, new trade licences would be issued only to businesses that maintain electronic cash registers in a bid to ensure strict enforcement of the new policy. Existing trade licences would not be renewed unless the applicants start using electronic cash registers.
The NBR has already asked the Dhaka City Corporation z (DCC) to inform all its trade S licence holders that the DCC i would not renew their trade | licences unless they purchase 5 and start using electronic cash registers by January 1, 2008, sourcesat NBRsaid.