Urge to amend colonial stamp law

Among various colonial laws, the Stamp Act of 1899 is one of the most important and economy- oriented laws. The Act is to increase and levy the revenue of the government, specify rules so that no casualty arises while determining stamp duty, and determine the rules about how to affix stamp at what rate in various instruments, etc.

The above purposes may be more clarified by a short overview of the Act. The Act contains 79 sections among which sections 6A, 19A, 29A and 48A were omitted by the Bangladesh Laws (Revision and Declaration) Act of 1973. Likewise, section 79 is repealed by the Repealing and Amending Act of 1914. This Act has also a schedule covering 65 instruments showing the catalogue of specified amount of stamp duty on the execution of the instruments.

But it is matter of surprise that the Bangladeshi regime after 1972 has not felt necessary either to amend or to redraft the Stamp Rules which was framed in 1925. This Rule has 22 rules and they are also encircled with many discrepancies and inconsistencies in the case of applicability of the Rules (the Rule is applicable in India as it was not declared to be applicable in Bangladesh by any Act of Parliament!) and their monetary references of Poisha instead of taka in many places.

It appears plausible to take for granted that the Legislature has been eschewing the amendment of the provisions of the Act since the birth of Bangladesh. A few sections have been amended in minor places of little essence. For example, by the Stamp (Amendment) Act of 2013, section 2 has been amended. But in most cases, schedules are amended. Entry 26 of Schedule-1 has been amended by the Stamp (Amendment) Act of 2010.

On the other hand, most of the amendments in the Schedule are done by the Finance Act almost in every fiscal year. The legislature may have thought that by changing the financial provisions of the Schedule in almost every fiscal year, the increase in revenue collection would be easier. Examples of increase in revenue may be worth-mentioning here.

On 3 July 2012, by amendment to the Schedule of the Stamp Act of 1899, the government increased the amount of duty on nearly 50 types of stamps (non-judicial), in some cases upto 900 percent. Moreover, the government fixed revenue target of 45.65 billion taka from non-NBR taxes during fiscal year 2012-2013. But it is a matter of tension that around 20 percent of yearly total revenue income of the government comes from tax. Out of that, only 3 percent comes from non-NBR tax (which is actually non-judicial stamp duty) whereas 17 percent is collected from NBR taxes. So, there is a huge gap between target and actual turnover of revenue collection.

The above functions of the government envisage that the academic ideology in the mind of the government in the case of the Stamp Act is absent. The State should not only concentrate on the financial outcome but also on the creation of time-befitting human resources. In doing so, the need for changing the Stamp Act is the demand of time. Section 4 of the Act states about duty of three taka; Section 11(a) states about the duty of Ten(10) Paisa or Five(5) paisa; Section 28 states about Five taka; Section 30 states about Twenty taka and Section 31 states about Five taka and Five paisa. If the meager monetary reference in the above provisions is replaced with the present rate of money in Bangladesh, the budgetary target would be pragmatically successful and the gradual target-increase in the next budget would be positively persuaded.

As the cost of immovable and movable properties has increased, the government cannot now be insouciant in mulling over how to augment the revenue by amending the above provisions along with the routine amendment of the Schedules.

The writer is a Lecturer of Law, North East University Bangladesh.