The National Board of Revenue, in an instruction issued on Tuesday, clarified that supershops selling goods at the maximum retail price cannot charge an additional value added tax from their customers as the VAT will be included in the retail prices or MRP.
According to the instruction, consumers will not have to pay an additional 5-7 per cent VAT on purchases of their essentials from the supershops.
Moreover, supershops paying VAT at the rate of 15 per cent can claim a tax rebate subject to compliance with other provisions of the law. However, if they pay VAT at the rate of 7.5 per cent, there is no legal scope for claiming a rebate, the NBR said.
For a long time, consumers, who were shopping at supershops, had to pay VAT at various rates, including 1.5 per cent, 2 per cent and sometimes 5 percent.
During the last budget, the government imposed 7.5 per cent VAT on shopping at the supershops.
Earlier, on February 20, the NBR鈥檚 VAT department issued a notification stating that there will be no VAT on shopping at the super shops. NBR authorities and super shop owners made the decision after several meetings.
However, the chain supershop owners had been objecting to this for a long time.
Earlier, in a roundtable, the Bangladesh Supermarket Owners Association stated that the main objective of the supermarket business is to provide consumers with a shopping experience in a beautiful and safe environment where food, fresh fruits, and vegetables can be found under one roof, but people don鈥檛 want to go to supermarkets because of the extra VAT.
They also said that聽as the VAT has been abolished at purchasing at the supuershops, the government will get more revenue from now.
According to the VAT Act 2012, a super shop means any independent and complete shop, regardless of size and whether air-conditioned or not, where healthy, germ-free, and preservative-free fish meat, rice noodles, vegetables, fruits, and other daily essentials and decorative products are sold using modern scientific technology.
Bangladesh Supermarket Owners Association said that there are currently more than 1,500 supershops across the country and among these, about 600 are chain supershops.
In recent years, the number of super shops has surged in the country. The country鈥檚 major chain super shops include Agora, Shwapno, Meena Bazar, Daily Shopping, Unimart, Almas, Prince Bazar, Daily Supershop, etc.
