• March 28, 2024

Nepal’s cigarette factories in taxing position

Nepal’s Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has removed its officials from cigarette factories and authorized tobacco companies to make declarations about their own inputs and outputs, according to a Republica story.

Ram Mani Dawadi, deputy director general at the IRD, was quoted as saying that the self-declaration system had been implemented on a trial basis at cigarette factories. The aim was to make the management and factory owners responsible.

There are three cigarette manufacturers in the country: Surya Nepal, Gorkha Lahari and Perfect Blends (Nepal). Surya Nepal, which operates two plants – one each in Bara and Tanahun – accounts for an 85 percent share of country’s cigarette market.

The factories were said to have been opposed to the self-declaration provision because, under the old system, when irregularities arose, they could point out that everything had been monitored by officials.

In fact, tax officials based in cigarette factories had been reporting that it was impossible to keep tabs on all the information about large factories.

The IRD will decide whether or not to continue with the self-declaration provision after studying the declarations made by the cigarette factories.