February 23: The entrepreneurs of Birgunj have complained that they have to pay interest to banks even for Value Added Tax just because of the delay in receiving payments. They said that they were at the receiving end due to the lack of debt recovery laws.

The young entrepreneurs of Birgunj made this complaint while submitting a letter of recommendation to the chairman of the High Level Tax System Reform Suggestion Committee, Bidyadhar Mallik.

Sandeep Agarwal, president of Birgunj chapter of the Nepalese Youth Entrepreneurs Forum, said that after the seller issues the tax invoice, they are obliged to pay VAT by the 25th day of the next month as per the Nepali calendar.

"On the one hand, we are unable to recover the amount while on the other hand, they have to pay taxes with interest to the bank," said Agarwal.

Rakesh Sah, the outgoing president of the forum, said that due to the lack of laws related to debt recovery, they are not able to recover money for the goods sold on credit. Due to this, the entire business cycle has become costly and they have lost the edge of business competitiveness.

The entrepreneurs have been demanding for years to bring an effective law for debt recovery. However, they are not able to understand the reason for the indifference of the lawmakers, said the outgoing president Sah.

The young entrepreneur also demanded that the VAT refund process should be simplified as it is very complicated at present.