Dhaka, June 30 (New Age): The National Board of Revenue
has taken an initiative to prepare a list of polluting industries for imposing
and collecting newly introduced green tax, officials said.
The list will be prepared with the help of Department of
Environment of the environment and forest ministry, they said.
DoE has already been asked to provide such list, if it
has any.
The government in the finance bill approved by the
parliament on June 28 included a provision of imposing one per cent environment
protection surcharge or green tax on the prices of products manufactured by the
industries which pollute environment.
Green tax, first of its kind in the country, will be
effective from July 1.
NBR has already started preliminary work to implement the
new budgetary initiative to protect the country’s environment.
But the response from the environment department is not
satisfactory at all, NBR officials blamed.
‘Till now, we have requested the DoE to provide the list
of polluting industries, but we are yet to get any response,’ a high official
of the NBR told New Age on Saturday.
In last week, DoE informed us that they have some
confusion about the issue, he said.
Now, value-added tax wing of the NBR has taken an
initiative to sit with the DoE officials to prepare the list, he said, adding
that the meeting might be held in a day or two.
The revenue board has already requested the Internal
Resources Division of the finance ministry for creating a separate code to
deposit the collected green tax in the government exchequer.
It will also prepare a rule describing the procedures of
imposing and collecting green tax which will be collected with VAT.
The tax has been imposed to encourage the owners of the
industries which cause pollution to set up effluent treatment plants in their
industries.
Many industries from leather, dying, printing, chemical,
and textile sectors pollute air, soil and water through discharging untreated
industrial wastage.