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Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday said that the scopes to legalise undisclosed money would continue in the next fiscal year, 2021-2022.
He, however, did not make clear whether the special facility and rates introduced in the budget for the current financial year for legalisation of undisclosed income would continue.
‘Wait till June 3,’ he said while answering to questions virtually from reporters on tax measures for the upcoming fiscal year after meetings of the cabinet committee on economic affairs and the cabinet committee on government purchases.
Mustafa Kamal will on June 3 place the national budget for FY22 in the parliament.
Until June, the finance minister has offered easy scopes for legalisation of untaxed money and assets beginning from July 1, 2020.
According to National Board of Revenue data, a total of 10,034 people legalised cash and assets worth Tk 14,295 crore in the first nine months of financial year 2020-2021 under the scheme and paid Tk 1,439 crore in taxes.
Businesspeople, economists and activists have been demanding for the past few months discontinuation of the facility, saying that such scopes discouraged honest taxpayers from paying tax while reward taxpayers who evade tax.
The finance minister noted that undisclosed income legalisation scopes should continue as long as such income generating sources remained alive because of flawed systems.
Identifying the concealment of actual land prices in the property business as a prolific source of undisclosed money generation, he said that steps like reducing registration fees and stamp duties had been taken.
The finance minister expressed optimism that the scopes would no longer be required once the glitches in the system were corrected.
