NBR to buy e-fiscal devices of Tk 317cr
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) will soon place its order for 100,000 electronic sales register machines for about Tk 317 crore as part of the government’s plan to check VAT evasion at the retail and wholesale levels.
It has already finished the tender evaluation process and selected the winning bidder to supply the devices, which will be installed at 25 types of businesses, including shops, hotels, restaurants and sweets stores, clothing, furniture and electronics outlets and jewellery.
Officials familiar with the matter said the NBR would place the purchase plan to the purchase committee for approval once Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal returns to Bangladesh.
Insiders said the NBR got three responsive bidders out of five to supply the machines, also called the Electronic Fiscal Device (EFD). Of them, a joint venture between China-based SZZT and Synesis IT has become the lowest bidder.
The other short-listed bidders were Smart Technologies and a joint venture between Inspur and Technovista, said officials.
“We want to place the work orders this month. If we can complete formalities, we would be able to install the EFDs at shops by the end of August,” said Syed Mushfequr Rahman, project director of the NBR’s VAT Online Project, which is also assigned to oversee the establishment of an EFD management system (EFDMS) at the revenue authority.
The NBR would start off with 10,000 EFDs and the rest would be ordered upon successful installation and operation of the EFDs at shops -- a scheme taken on in 2017 to check value-added tax evasion and increase revenue collection.
The EFDs would be provided to shops based on the list provided by field level VAT offices, Rahman said.
Initially, the NBR targeted November 1, 2018 to install the devices at stores but it could not complete its own preparations. The NBR floated the latest tender to buy the devices in December last year.
The EFDs, which will be established at businesses at retail and wholesale level, would be connected to the EFDMS at the NBR, and sales invoice be sent to the EFDMS to get authorisation code for printing the invoice.
Similarly, sales data controllers would be installed at shops that have systems like Point of Sales (POS).
The NBR will also connect its EFDMS to the POS systems at relatively larger stores like Shwapno, Agora and so on.
Officials said businesses would be able to maintain records of sales and inventory of goods properly. Asked about how the NBR would ensure that shops are using the EFDs, Rahman said the company that would get the contract would monitor it.
“We are also training officers of the local VAT offices. This can also be monitored centrally as the server will be set up at Bangladesh Computer Council. While sitting here one can monitor sales at a shop at Dinajpur.” The NBR plans to introduce lottery to motivate consumers to demand sales receipts or chalans from stores.
Comments