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SIM REPLACEMENT

NBR to see a sharp cut in its tax claim

Abdullah Mamun
The amount of tax that the National Board of Revenue had claimed from four mobile operators for SIM replacement has come down drastically -- to around Tk 251 crore, according to
interim reports of a review committee.
Last year the tax administrator had claimed Tk 3,062.16 crore from the operators - Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi and Airtel - arguing that the operators had resold the SIM cards and dodged tax during July 2009 to December 2011.
The NBR claimed the amount, which includes 15 percent interest, examining only 20 SIM cards of the operators.
The operators have been refuting the claim saying the SIMs were issued as replacement for the lost or damaged ones. The dispute later moved to the apex court, which asked the NBR to resolve the issue.
Last month a review committee was formed having representatives from the telecom regulator, NBR, mobile operators and the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) to reexamine the replaced SIMs.
The committee took 4,900 SIMs of the four operators on a random basis and verified those in 20 ways to check whether the SIMs were used by the same users. Four subcommittees were formed to review the SIMs of the four operators.
The subcommittees reviewed almost all the SIMs of Banglalink, Robi and Airtel, and 44 percent SIMs of Grameenphone. However, the total payable amount may change after all the reviews are done.
The Daily Star obtained the copies of the interim reports of the subcommittees.
According to the interim reports, 12.26 percent SIMs of Grameenphone, 4.83 percent of Banglalink, 3 percent of Robi and 0.36 percent of Airtel had problems and were taxable, till August 23. The committees started the verification process on July 31 and submitted the interim reports on August 27.
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However, the government had earlier committed to the operators that it would end all tax-related disputes before the 3G auction scheduled for today.
Sunil Kanti Bose, chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, said the committees reexamined the SIMs according to a formula prescribed by the NBR, and the interim reports were accepted by all the stakeholders.
"The procedure was very much acceptable," he said.
However, an NBR official recently wrote in a letter to the convener of the review committee that the government should not take any concrete decision based on the interim reports.
When asked about the matter, the BTRC chairman said, "The NBR officials have signed the reports along with the operators and BTRC representatives."
"After the 3G auction, we will sit with the government to finalise the matter," Bose added.
TIM Nurul Kabir, secretary general of AMTOB and a member of the review committee, said the reviews should be completed as soon as possible.
Zakiul Islam, senior director of Banglalink, said: "All the samples of my company were duly verified and the verification was done based on the terms of reference."
Mahmud Hossain, chief corporate affairs officer of Grameenphone, said, "We could not send some of the information from the CDR (call details records) due to large volume of call data. But we believe the number of taxable SIMs will decrease substantially when we will be able to provide all the information."
Mahmudur Rahman, executive vice president of Robi, said, they are now waiting for a government decision on the basis of the interim reports.