‘Uniformity being made in collecting VAT’

Biratnagar, Sept 10 (RSS): Finance secretary Dr. Bimal Prasad Koirala, speaking at a seminar on "The Present Economic Situation and its Challenges" organised by the Morang Trade Association here the other day, said that the country’s economic development is possible only if an organisational infrastructure is created between the industrialists, the businessmen and the government.

Dr. Koirala said that the objective of the government is not only to collect revenues but also to increase gross national production, move towards a progressive taxation system, activate the possibilities of increasing revenue and developing a more transparent revenue machinery.

Stating that the civil servants had been encouraged towards committing irregularities as the industrialists and businessmen were not cooperating in paying revenues by being sincere and transparent, Dr. Koirala said that the tax payers should voluntarily declare their income and pay taxes, and evaluation system should be based on the concept of equality inorder to bring about uniformity in the taxation system.

The finance secretary made it clear that the government would not provide the tax officers with discretionary powers.

Director general of the Department of Customs Madhav Prasad Ghimire said that the industrialists and businessmen should join hands with the government for economic development of the country.

Mr. Ghimire said that there should be uniformity in evaluating goods for customs and a positive consensus should be reached to check leakage of revenues.

Director general of the Department of Internal Revenue Vidhyadhar Mallik said that even though efforts had been made to bring about uniformity in collecting value added tax (VAT), differences were seen in the buying and selling prices of the businessmen and industrialists.

Mr. Mallik said that arrangements had been made to resolve the problems of small tax payers as well as collecting revenues at the local level.

Convenor of the FNCCI tax and financial committee Jagadish Prasad Rathi said that the tax payers at the local level should be provided facilities, the language of the Income Act-2058 should be simplified and the tax net should be broadened.

At the function chaired by president of Morang Trade Association Shanker Lal Agrawal, convenor of the Morang Trade Association internal revenue coordination sub-committee Suresh Kumar Naulakha had presented a working paper on : Present Economic Situation and its Challenges.

At the seminar the former president of the Morang Trade Association, office-bearers of the Damak, Itahari, Dhankuta, Lahan and Urlabari Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the representatives of various vocational institutions had expressed their views on the problems being faced by the industrial and businessmen due to the lack of law and order and the income tax act and regulations.

Meanwhile, with the start of the computer on-line service in The Employees’ Provident Fund Office, Nepalgunj the clients are now able to withdraw their deposits within a few minutes after filling up the requisition form.

The on-line service which has come into operation just a week back, has proved useful for its clients in curtailing expenses and time as well as averting risk resulting from traveling, it stated by the branch office.

This is the third branch that provides on-line service to its clients. The service has already been started in its Pokhara and Bhairahawa branches in 2057 and 2058 B.S. Respectively.

The branch office came up with the on-line service to smoothen the issuance of loans and cash payment to its clients as well as to enable the clients to ckeck their balance.

The system has resolved the problem of clients of the Mid-western and Far-western regions of rushing to the centre to withdraw their deposits and visiting the branch office to know whether the centre has approved the loans or not.

So far, the employees has withdrawn their deposit amounting to Rs. 5 million within a week of its operation.