Economy
IMF to Focus on Energy Pricing, TIN Introduction

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will mainly focus on introduction of Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) and energy pricing during the upcoming visit of its representatives early next month.

The representatives of the Washington-based multilateral donor agency during the visit from April 3-17 are likely to press the National Board of Revenue (NBR) for holding joint audit under the Revenue Board Reform, sources concerned said.

The IMF has already inquired about the issues and requested the authorities concerned to let it know about the progress, so that the team could help the board in this connection during the upcoming visit.

The sources said that The NBR is supposed to introduce the uniform taxpayers identification system from the current fiscal to net in elusive tax evaders in the country. The board has found that some TIN holders evade income tax despite paying huge value added taxes (VAT).

The NBR will introduce the system after examining its merits and demerits in consultation with foreign experts working in the board in this connection, the sources added.

However, there is no significant progress in introduction of the TIN system as it is a very difficult job, a senior official said.

There are around 1.7 million (17 lakh) TIN holders. There are also 0.4 million VAT-payers identification number holders at the local level and 0.5 million at the import level. 

But these data are also flawed because of duplication and these are not regularly updated, he added.

On the other hand, Energy Division officials said a pricing policy to fix prices of petroleum products in line with the international prices has already been framed and it now awaits the higher authority's nod. 

They said that the main feature of the policy is to fix the prices of petroleum products after calculating at least eight kinds of expenses relating to import and distribution costs.

The costs include import parity price, port charge, import duty, value added tax, transportation cost, and money from banks and other sources for import.

Another main feature of the policy is that the government will review the prices in every six months. But if the international oil prices increase or decrease by US$10 per barrel, the government will review the prices immediately, he added.

The government has already decided to provide subsidy worth Tk 6.0 billion (600 crore) to Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) to bail out the state-owned oil importer from severe liquidity crisis and to ensure uninterrupted oil import.

The cash-starved BPC demanded subsidy amounting to Tk 15.00 billion as it recorded an accumulated deficit worth Tk 117.21 billion until 2006 for selling the oil products at prices lower than import costs. 

Still the BPC is recording a deficit worth nearly Tk 2.0 billion each month as the government has turned down a number of appeals by the Energy Division on upward price adjustment of petroleum products to reduce the deficit.

Last year BPC had to take loans worth Tk 100.00 billion from nationalised commercial banks (NCBs), mainly Sonali, Janata and Agrani. 

The NCBs later refused to assist further oil import as the BPC failed to repay the loans.