July 2: A meeting of the House of Representatives on Sunday passed the Finance Bill, 2023 with majority.     
Finance Minister Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat had presented a proposal in the meeting seeking the passage of the bill. The bill was endorsed after amendment proposals on it were rejected by a majority.    
Lawmakers Prem Suwal, Sumana Shrestha and Sishir Khanal had presented amendment proposal on the bill. Presenting a proposal in the lower house to amend the bill, lawmaker Suwal raised a question over the exemption on Capital Gains Tax provided to Ncell. He alleged the government of failing to collect taxes from various private companies for many years. He drew the attention of the government saying it has not been able to collect tax from Hello Nepal, Muktishree and Synergy Nepal for years.    
Lawmaker Sumana Shrestha, presenting the amendment proposal on the Finance Bill, 2023, questioned the tax imposed at the customs. She demanded imposing customs duty on E-cigarettes.    
"Customs tax has not been levied on e-cigarette and personal e-smoking goods, whereas a 10 percent customs surcharge has been levied on pencils and pencil sharpener used by kids," she complained.

She opined that VAT should not be imposed on daily-consumption food and drew the government's attention towards determining the customs charges in a way to ease the import of raw materials for domestic production and products.

Shrestha stressed on the need of making arrangements so that the farmers produce would fetch appropriate prices.    
Presenting a proposal seeking amendment to the bill, lawmaker Shishir Khanal criticized the imposition of VAT on air tickets against the government's own policy of promoting domestic production and bringing maximum number of foreign tourists to Nepal.-- RSS