Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB) has requested the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to continue the scope for whitening black money in housing sector for the next 5 years.
The leaders of the association came up with the demand while attending a pre-budget discussion with NBR officials held at its headquarters in the capital with NBR chairman Md. Ghulam Hussain in the chair.
The meeting was attended, among others, by NBR members Farid Uddin, Syed Aminul Karim and Jahangir Hossain.
The NBR should continue the facility to boost the sales of apartments as people could not invest their undisclosed money in the previous year due to political turmoil situation, which lasted till January 5 polls, said REHAB vice-president Liakat Ali Bhuiyan.
The association also proposed the NBR to reduce the income tax on transfer of per square metre residential lands, buildings and apartments to Tk1,000, Tk800 and Tk500 respectively from existing Tk1,600, Tk1,500 and Tk600 for the areas divided in three different categories.
The REHAB also proposed to reduce tax on transfer of commercial lands, buildings and apartments to Tk5,000, Tk.3,000 and Tk1,000 respectively from existing Tk6,5000, Tk5,000 and Tk1,600 for the three different categories.
The other demands include reduction of gain tax, stamp duty, registration fee and value-added tax in registration of plots and flats to 6.5% from the existing 11.50%.
REHAB also recommended that the government should introduce secondary market for trading flats and plots at a lower tax.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Land Developers Association echoed with the proposals made by the REHAB at the same meeting.
Addressing the meeting, Bangladesh Auto Re-Rolling and Steel Mills Association urged the NBR to increase customs duty on import of MS Billet to Tk5,500 per tonnes from the existing Tk3,500 tonnes and reducing duties on the import of raw materials used in re-rolling and steel mills in a bid to protect local industry.
Steel Building Manufacturers Association of Bangladesh sought reduction of duty on import of colour sheet used in pre-fabricated building industry.
Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association (BCMA) sought reduction of duty in import of raw materials including clinker and fly ash for the sector.
In reply NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain said: NBR has been largely deprived from collecting a huge amount of taxes just from the land purchase because of the malpractice for undervaluation of the real prices of lands and apartments during the registration process.
Citing an example, he said 1-katha land in Gulshan and Banani is now being sold at Tk10 crore but the price of the land is being shown only Tk52 lakh at the time of registration.
“The NBR was supposed to get Tk1crore as tax if the transaction could be made in actual price but it got only Tk 5.2 lakh because of undervaluation.’’
NBR chief further explained that during the last year, the revenue board provided huge tax break to this sector, which is against the spirit of the government’s tax policy, just considering the consumers’ interest but it could not yield any result as the price of land remained higher and continue to be increased further. L