Covid-19 vaccine exempted from VAT

The government has exempted value added tax or VAT (including a deduction at source tax) imposed on preserving, marketing and distributing Covid-19 vaccine as well as on the vaccination campaign.   

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) issued a gazette notification in this regard on Wednesday.

However, this exemption is based on two conditions: it will be applicable only when the vaccine is shipped for the Bangladesh government and the details of all financial transactions in the process should be submitted to the respective Customs, Excise and VAT Commissionerates within 10 days of getting paid. 

Since the government has taken up various measures to stop the coronavirus from spreading, the VAT exemption is part of those steps, the NBR notification reads.

The development comes amid the health authorities’ claim that they were instructed to purchase 30 million more doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from Serum Institute of India (SII).

Bangladesh has already received nine million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, with the government mulling administering 40 million vaccines by July.

Bangladesh started a mass vaccination campaign in February in its fight against the deadly virus that till Wednesday had killed 8,428 across the country.

As many as 4,655,464 people had completed vaccine registration across Bangladesh as of Wednesday evening.

As of Wednesday, as many as 3,460,159 people have received their first shot of the vaccine since the nationwide vaccination began on February 7.