Kathmandu, January 22

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has formed two steering committees to make revisions to existing acts so that they become compatible with provisions laid in the new Constitution that came into effect on September 20.

Of the two committees, one is led by Finance Secretary Lok Darshan Regmi and the other is headed by Revenue Secretary Rajan Khanal.

The committee led by Regmi will look into acts that deal with non-tax issues and the other led by Khanal will work on acts that deal with taxation issues, said Krishna Prasad Devkota, head of the Economic Policy Analysis Division at the MoF.

Both the committees will comprise director generals of concerned departments, heads of concerned divisions at the MoF, representative of the Ministry of Law and Parliamentary Affairs and chief of Legal and Consultation Division of the MoF as members.

Under these committees, two different sub-committees have also been formed, comprising director generals of concerned departments and under secretaries of the concerned divisions and the Legal and Consultation Division of the MoF.

These committees and sub-committees are allowed to seek suggestions from specialists, experts and civil servants, who are not in the committees, depending on the need, Devkota said.

“The main task of these committees and sub-committees is to amend existing acts to ensure they are in line with provisions incorporated in the new constitution. If necessary, these bodies will also frame new bills,” Devkota said.

In this regard, the bodies will have to work on 62 acts or bills, including Commodities Bill, which is being framed for the first time.

“However, these committees and sub-committees will not touch upon issues that can only be ascertained after federal states are carved out. Some of these issues are related to taxation because one cannot predict how the federal states

will collect some of the taxes at the moment,” Devkota added.

Earlier in 2014, the MoF had initiated the process of drafting four bills and revising six different acts.

Following this, the process of amending the Bank and Financial Institutions Act, Nepal Rastra Bank Act, Banking Offence and Punishment Act, Employees Provident Fund Act and Audit Act had begun. At that time, the process of drafting Deposit and Credit Guarantee Bill had also begun.

These acts and bills have now been forwarded to Parliament.

This week, the Parliamentary Committee on Finance even formed a seven-member sub-committee to settle outstanding issues related to amendments made to the Bank and Financial Institutions Act.