More than 12,000 business entities have opened Current Deposit or CD accounts with four commercial banks within the last five months. In August last year, the Department of Revenue and Customs notified small, medium and large businesses including CSOs to open CD accounts to ensure businesses declare their income and pay taxes without leakages. The department also notified that failure to do so will be fined up to Nu 5,000.
The Bank of Bhutan has registered the highest number of new CD accounts so far. After the notification, the BoB registered 10,000 CD accounts as of December last year. Before the notification, the bank had 25,000 CD accounts.
Similarly, T Bank registered 1,584 new CD accounts as of last month. The bank had 9,707 registered CD accounts before the notification.
Likewise, the Bhutan Development Bank has registered 295 new accounts. 4,279 CD accounts were registered with the bank before the mid of August last year.
Moreover, Druk PNB Bank Ltd registered 507 new CD accounts to date. 4,328 CD accounts were active with the bank before the department’s notification.
Meanwhile, the Bhutan National Bank or BNB refused to share its data with the BBS but said that they are on track to achieve its target.
The four banks in the country excluding BNB have registered over 55,000 CD accounts so far.
In the meantime, no business entities have been imposed fines for failing to comply with the new rules. However, the DRC plans to resume inspection and monitoring of business entities which have been currently halted due to the tax filing season.
There are about 62,000 business entities across the country. They paid more than Nu 10 M as tax to the Department of Revenue and Customs in 2021.
Devika Pradhan
Edited by Sonam Pem
