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Experts on Tuesday emphasized the need for measures to enhance tax revenue, commence automation of tax collection, generate employment, reduce inflation and ensure policy predictability in the upcoming budget.
They also stressed the need for expanding the tax net, revisiting corporate tax, containing tax evasion, and rethinking the formulation of a big budget where subsidies will cross Tk100,000 crore.
The Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh (ICMAB) organized the pre-budget discussion chaired by its president Abdur Rahman Khan.
Secretary of the Financial Institutions Division (FID) Sheikh Mohammad Salim Ullah attended the event as the chief guest while former ICMAB president Arif Khan moderated it.
FID secretary Sheikh Mohammad Salim Ullah said everyone raises their voice for lowering taxes at the pre-budget events, but they do not think from where the money will come to carry out development activities.
He said the ratio of tax to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is less than 8.0%, which is very low compared to any other countries with the same economic size.
Salim Ullah also said it is evident that small entities hardly evade tax payment, but at the same time “if we want to double our tax-GDP ratio, we have to grab the big fishes that are dodging taxes to a large extent”.
Executive Director of Foreign Investors’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) TIM Nurul Kabir said the number one challenge for foreign investors in Bangladesh is policy predictability.
“When they come here, they are offered handsome incentives. But soon after the investments are made, the incentives are banished which put the investors in danger,” he said.
Kabir cited the example of mobile phone manufacturers who established factories in the country are now facing various supplementary and regulatory duties, which lead to an increase in the production costs and as such, their investment is now at risk.
Sayema Haque Bidisha, research director of Sanem, hailed some of the proposals submitted by the ICMAB for the next budget such as bringing foreign companies under tax net, keeping new taxpayers out of the preview of audit to encourage tax return submission, and waiving tax on life-saving drugs.
She also emphasized the need for total digitization of the tax collection system to prevent tax dodging.
(DT)
