The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has finally decided to outsource the services related with Electronic Fiscal Device (EFD) for retail VAT collection to the private sector to popularise it.
The EFD-related services would be provided by the private companies, having at least five years of working experience on some required fields.
The NBR's VAT wing has already invited tender to select three companies for three VAT zones for the task. The tender applications would be accepted until January 16, 2022.
A senior VAT official said the private companies would sell EFDs to businesses and provide after sales services being connected with the NBR main server.
"The NBR will pay charges to the companies against their services. The companies will be able to charge maximum Tk 200 for each EFD from businesses in a month under the contract."
It would be strategy of the private companies to popularise EFDs, as the more they ensure EFD-generated chalans, the more they would get service charges.
The NBR would not take the trouble to purchase EFDs and sell these to the businesses, he added.
Earlier, the NBR provided a total of 3,500 EFDs free-of-cost to the businesses. Later, the VAT wing decided to discontinue the facility. Each of the EFD machine costs around Tk 20,000.
The private companies, that would be the lowest bidder, would be responsible for distribution, installation and maintenance of EFD and Sales Data Controller (SDC) machines as well as monitoring operation of the installed machines to ensure collection
of VAT and supplementary duty (SD) from different types of business entities through EFDs.
The applicant companies must have minimum five years of experience in human resource management in any government, semi-government or autonomous organisations, financial organisations, insurance companies or ICT sector.
Abu Motaleb, Director of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), said the government should try to install the device in all retail outlets first without any harassment.
He, however, expressed doubt over the private sector's capability to popularise it, as the government could not do it in the last six years.
He said willingness of VAT officials is also important to make EFD installation drive successful, as there is an 'unholy alliance' between corrupt officials and some businesses.
Some 25 types of businesses in the city corporation areas and district towns came under the provision of mandatory installation of EFD in 2018.
EFD is mandatory for residential hotels, restaurants and fast food shops, sweetmeat shops, furniture outlets, dress or boutique shops, beauty parlours, sellers of electronic or electrical home appliances, community centres, posh shopping malls, departmental stores, general stores/ super shops, large and medium businesses (retail and wholesale), and gold and silver traders.
The NBR replaced the Electronic Cash Register (ECR), as interconnectivity with its Electronic Fiscal Device Management System (EFDMS) through Application Programming Interface (API) is needed for cross-checking the recorded transactions.
The EFDMS can be activated or deactivated by the NBR through remote control. Proper use of EFDs would be monitored and inspected by the NBR.
To popularise EFD use, the NBR arranges lottery programme every month and offers cash prices to the winners who obtained EFD-generated invoices.
