The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has finally exempted Grameen Bank from payment of income tax for a period of six months with retrospective effect from January to June 2011, which was earlier left out from the tax break facility.
The revenue body has taken up the decision following requests from the microcredit institution as the bank said it was facing a number of complexities in preparing its financial statement for the financial year 2011.
The revenue authority last week provided the tax break to the bank with an official gazette, signed by its chairman Nojibur Rahman.
With this order, the bank will enjoy exemption of all types of taxes including income tax, super tax and business profit tax of the bank from January to June 2011.
The Grameen Bank had enjoyed tax exemption facility since its inception in 1983 to December 2010. However the decision for extending the tax break to the bank remained pending till June 2012 when the tax authority again provided the Grameen Bank with tax exemption from July 2011 to December 2015 with retrospective effect, officials said.
In the process, the period from January to June 2011 remained left out of the exemption facility. During that period, the bank has paid Tk10 crore as advance income tax in the fiscal year 2011-12 as the decision for tax break was pending at that time.
NBR officials, however, said the board will not refund the money that the bank paid as tax because the exemption will continue till December 2015.
“The money can be adjusted if the exemption period if not extended after its expiry in December 2015,” said an official.