Prices of health products and protective kits, such as masks, gloves and PPE, to fight COVID-19 are set to drop as the government is waiving VAT in the proposed budget for FY21, reports bdnews24.com.
The government is discouraging individual spending on luxury products amid the outbreak, proposing a rise in duty and taxes on these commodities, reports bdnews24.com.
While unveiling the budget in parliament on Thursday, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal also proposed rise in duty and taxes on cosmetics, mobile phone services, car registration and imported chicken.
Products that may get costlier:
>> Locally made loaded and unloaded printer circuit board, router: 5.0 per cent VAT proposed.
>> Furniture: rise in VAT at showroom stage to 7.5 per cent from 5.0 per cent proposed.
>> Air conditioned launch services: doubling the VAT to 10 per cent proposed.
>> Car and SUV: rise in supplementary duty to 16 per cent from 10 per cent on registration and related services proposed.
>> Chartered aircraft and helicopter services: rise in supplementary duty to 30 per cent from 25 per cent proposed.
>> Mobile phone services: rise in supplementary duty to 15 per cent from 10 per cent.
>> Locally manufactured cosmetics: doubling supplementary duty to 10 per cent proposed.
>> Ceramic Sink, basin, etc.: imposition of 10 per cent supplementary duty proposed.
>> Cigarette and bidi: rise in prices in three of four cigarette slabs and all bidi products proposed.
>> Onion: custom duty on onion import proposed.
>> Industrial salt: increase in import duty proposed.
>> Imported chicken: increase in duty on import of cuts and offal of chicken proposed.
>> Imported nails, screws, small machinery parts, etc.: increase in duty and taxes proposed.
>> Furnace oil: withdrawal of duty waiver proposed to discourage construction of oil-based power plants.
Prices that may increase:
>> Raw materials: Several articles of Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act 2012 were modified due to the coronavirus pandemic. The advance tax on import of raw materials for local industries has been reduced to 4.0 per cent from 5.0 per cent. Consequently, the process of locally made raw materials should drop.
>> COVID-19 test kits, Personal Protective Equipment and medication: VAT has been exempted for the import, production and trade of COVID-19 test kits, PPE and all sorts of masks, infection preventing medicines.
>> Textile industry materials: VAT on polyester, rayon and other synthetic yarn have been cut down to 5.0 per cent from 15 per cent. The VAT on synthetic yarn has been fixed at Tk 6.0 per kg and on all sorts of cotton yarn is proposed Tk 3.0 per kg as opposed to existing Tk 4.0.
>> Small and medium-sized enterprises: Concession given on several raw materials used in the production of these goods will cause their prices to drop.
>> Fish, poultry and dairy products: Concessions has been given on imports of soybean oil cakes and soya protein concentrated goods, so their prices may drop.
>> Potato flakes: VAT has been reduced to 5.0 per cent from 15 percentage points on potato flakes, so it may see a drop in prices.
>> Corn powder: Prices on maize starches may drop after VAT on its manufacturing was cut down to 5.0 per cent from 15 per cent.
>> Mustard oil: VAT of locally produced mustard oils was exempted.
>> Agricultural machinery: VAT has been exempted for trading of agricultural machinery products like power reaper, power tiller operated seeder, combined harvester, rotary tiller.