With only a week to go for mobile phone operators to apply for 3G spectrum auction, the longstanding impasse surrounding Tk30.18bn Sim replacement tax claim continues to cast a shadow of doubt.
Yet another meeting between the mobile phone operators and the National Board of Revenue (NBR) ended without any result on July 23.
The two parties would sit again tomorrow in a bid to find a solution to the one and half year old tax claim issue. They have had several meetings over the last few days and even the Prime Minister’s Office had been attached with it.
The last date of filing application for 3G is August 1 and the auction is scheduled for September 2.
TIM Nurul Kabir, secretary general of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (Amtob) told the Dhaka Tribune that the operators were fully prepared to apply for the auction but before that they needed to be clear about the government’s stance.
He, however, expressed hopes about being able to resolve the issue when the meeting resumed.
Last year, the NBR claimed Tk30.18bn in unpaid sim replacement tax from the top operators. Grameenphone was asked to pay TK15.80bn, Banglalink Tk7.74bn and Robi Tk6.64bn.
The operators immediately went to court and after nearly a year, on June 6 this year, the High Court directed the trio to go back to the NBR and the authorities to resolve the matter within 120 days.
Following the HC ruling, the issue has to be now resolved at the NBR’s VAT Appellate Tribunal; but for a hearing to take place, the operators will have to down pay at least 10% of the total amount of due taxes, amounting to nearly Tk3.018bn.
The NBR has proposed Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), which could enable the disagreeing parties to come to an agreement outside court.
However, during yesterday’s meeting, the operators said they were not interested in traditional ADR.
“The NBR has refused our proposal for International Chamber of Commerce ADR. But we are still hopeful,” the Amtob secretary general said.
After the meeting, an NBR official said: “The telecom operators seemed indifferent about ADR. Rather they wanted to go for international arbitration to settle the dispute.”
The NBR, however, responded in the negative saying there was no scope to go for international arbitration as the dispute was absolutely an internal matter between two parties inside the country, the official said.
In Bangladesh, a mobile phone user can get a replacement subscriber identity module or sim card for almost free of cost if he loses it or somehow damages it.
The NBR, staying well within the country’s legal fabric, claimed that irrespective of the amount that the operators charge for sim replacement, taxes have to be paid for each of the cards issued.
The mobile phone operators, on the other hand, have claimed that the replacement sim cards did not carry any tax because these modules were not sold.
In an inter-ministerial meeting on June 27, Finance Minister AMA Muhith also recommended “no sim replacement tax.”
The NBR, however, did not follow the minister’s recommendation.