The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has exempted a Japanese firm from payment of value added tax on remaking of a digital film made on the struggle of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The board, with a special order, recently provided the exemption to the Japanese firm Goto. Inc. on remaking of the 30-minute large format digital film that will be projected at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Novo Theater.
The Japanese company that develops different models of planetarium has been supplying and maintaining the technological equipment of the planetarium at the Novo Theater, officials said.
As per Prime Minister’s observation, the film, which was already developed by the Japanese firm, needed remaking, the NBR order reads.
Finance Division has allocated a total of Tk4.92 crore for the remaking of the film, but it has not allocated any additional money for the VAT payment.
As the digital film will help young generation and visitors know about the life of Bangabandhu and is considered as an important document from the research perspective, the NBR is making the exemption as per section 14 (1Ka) of Value Added Tax Act 1991, the order signed by NBR first secretary Mohammad Faizur Rahman reads.
Section 14 (1A) of the act deals with giving exemptions to import of product or providing services to different international agreements, memorandums of understanding (MoUs), conventions etc as reciprocal basis.
Bangabandhu Novo Theater director general Arshad Hossain told Dhaka Tribune that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in September last year instructed the authorities to do some re-doing on the film that was prepared earlier by the Japanese firm.