The Finance Minister proposed deferring implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by one year at the National Assembly today. Lyonpo said Bhutan Integrated Taxation System requires extra time to be fully developed. The government was supposed to implement the Bill starting next month.
Through the Bhutan Integrated Taxation System, the government plans to digitize the Goods and Services Tax system that aims to capture all digital tax information on such transactions for tax purposes.
“With Thimphu TechPark, the experts are seeking help from Armenia. But last year when the date was fixed for them to come here, their date coincided with the first lockdown. So they couldn’t come. And we can’t transfer knowledge through the internet. They have to come here physically,” said Finance Minister Namgay Tshering.
The finance minister added that the Bill can’t come into effect because of the current inflation, household consumption and inadequate knowledge about the system among Bhutanese businessman.
“The experts told us that they can’t come and they need six months more. We discussed it with them and I said that postponing for other issues is easy to discuss but for this particular one, it needs to go through the parliament. And we need to propose and deliberate the details to all the members here. I asked if six months is really enough and they said it is more than enough. We asked for one year because we want to give them extra time,” said the Prime Minister.
So far, the online registration system which is one of the main components in the Bhutan Integrated Taxation System is almost complete while the GST payment and refund system still need a few months to complete.
Almost Nu 600 M is allocated for the system of which nearly Nu 350 M has been spent on the system. The system is being developed by the Thimphu TechPark.
The House directed the legislative Committee to deliberate on the matter. The Speaker added since it is a Money Bill, it should be passed in the same session.
Samten Dolkar/Sangay Chezom/Yeshi Dorji
