High Court ruling on VAT
HC stays VAT on English medium schools
(Asif Islam Shaon)
The High Court has questioned a government decision of imposing 7.5% Value Added Tax (VAT) on English medium schools’ tuition fees and imposed a freeze on VAT for six months.
After hearing a petition filed by two guardians of English medium school challenging the legality of the decision, the HC bench of Justice Shamim Hasnain and Justice Mohammad Ullah came up with the order.
It issued a rule asking why the decision would not be declared illegal and asked the NBR chairman and the secretary to the education ministry to come up with their explanations.
The Bangladesh English-Medium School Association’s started demanding to withdraw the VAT since Monday after the government decided to remove VAT on tuition fees of private universities, medical colleges and engineering universities, facing movement by the students and criticism by citizens.
The writ petition was filed by the parents of two English-medium school students on Wednesday. The HC held the primary hearing on Wednesday.
The government imposed a 4.5% VAT on fees and services in English medium schools in 2010. In 2014, it was raised to 7.5%. However, there is no VAT on Bangla medium schools and government-approved English version schools.
- See more at: http://www.dhakatribune.com/law-and-rights/2015/sep/17/hc-stays-vat-english-medium-schools#sthash.uberPrql.dpuf
N.B. Our lawyer has advised that henceforth, B.I.T. will no longer be charging VAT as of 20.09.2015.
Lubna Choudhury
Founder-Principal BIT
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