The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has decided to halve the excise duty for hajj passengers to ease their financial burden in purchasing air ticket.
With the excise duty reduction, air fare for each of the Saudi Arabia-bound pilgrims will be Tk 1,000. Currently, each hajj passenger has to pay Tk 2,000 as excise duty with air ticket.
NBR's Value Added Tax (VAT) Wing is set to issue an order shortly on reducing the excise duty.
Only hajj passengers will be eligible to enjoy the reduced rate of excise duty, while other airline passengers will continue to pay the regular amount.
Officials said every year a large number of devotee Muslim Bangladeshis go to Saudi Arabia for performing hajj. The government does not want to collect higher revenue from the sector.
Considering proposals of Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (HAAB), the government took the decision. It would cause Tk 160 million loss in estimated collection of internal revenue in the current fiscal year (FY), 2017-18.
The government has increased the excise duty on air tickets in the budget for the current FY.
Apart from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, excise duty on air tickets of other Asian countries has been increased two-fold to Tk 2,000.
Excise duty for Europe, USA and other countries has been revised upward to Tk 3,000 from Tk 1,500.
Excise duty for the SAARC countries and domestic flights has been kept unchanged at Tk 500.
However, while talking to the FE, many hajj passengers said they would not be able to enjoy the benefit of the reduced duty due to delay in decision making of the government.
Already most of the devotees, who would go under private management, have paid their total cost in a package to the hajj agents, they said.
The agents may get benefit of the duty reduction, and it is difficult to get back the paid amount from them, they added.
The hajj flights will start today (Monday) and are scheduled to end on August 26. Some 1,27,198 pilgrims from Bangladesh will go for performing hajj this year under both government and private management.
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Source: The Financial Express