Achieving revenue target from VAT to be difficult: Muhith

Achieving revenue target from VAT in the current fiscal will be “very difficult” as the new law has been scrapped for the next two years, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said today.

He said Tk 20,000 crore was the additional income target under the new VAT law but now it is impossible to meet it.

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“How to meet it is a very difficult problem. I can’t say anything about this,” Muhith said while talking to reporters after a purchases committee at the secretariat this afternoon.

“I shall not speak about it now. I am having various meeting. After these, I will see what I will have to do in this connection,” Muhith said.

On June 1, Muhith placed the proposed budget for the 2017-18 fiscal fixing 15 percent uniform VAT targeting to collect revenue Tk 2 lakh 48 thousand and 190 hundred crore under the new VAT law.

Amid huge criticism from different quarters including treasury and opposition bench lawmakers, the government later decided not to implement the new VAT law for the next two years.