The High Court on Thursday ordered the government to levy tax and other duties on the revenue earned in the country by Google, Facebook, YouTube and Amazon.
The taxes and duties would be levied on all types of transactions including online advertisements, domain sales, and licence fees.
A High Court bench comprised of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal also issued a rule asking the concerned authorities why a directive should not be issued to exact the revenue from these and other internet-based service providers.
The High Court named the respondents as the secretaries of finance, law, information, and posts and telecommunications; the Bangladesh Bank governor; the National Board of Revenue chairman; the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission chairman; and the Bangladesh Newspapers Owners Association president.
The authorities of Google, Facebook, and YouTube were also listed.
As per the order, the government has been instructed to collect tax and other duties from search engines Google and Yahoo, e-commerce site Amazon, social networking website Facebook, video-sharing site YouTube, and all international internet platforms.
The court also asked the government to form a committee comprising experts to assess the amount of their transactions over the past 10 years and submit a report by June 25, ahead of the next hearing set for June 28.
The writ petition was filed by a group of lawyers on Monday.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
