Checking inflation and generating new jobs will get priority in the upcoming national budget for the financial year 2023-2024, said Financial Institutions Division secretary Sheikh Mohammad Salim Ullah.
He made the comment at a pre-budget discussion programme arranged by the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh at its auditorium in the capital Dhaka on Tuesday.
He said, ‘Balancing tax-to GDP growth and ensuring the privet sector growth both are the key priority before finalising the budget for the financial year 2023-2024 as we are moving forward to the developing country status in the coming days.’
Identifying the tax evaders and ensuring the best practices of automation taxes system to boost the tax revenue will be the key to meet the budgetary expenses as dependency on internal and external borrowing will be challenging for the country despite global economic woes and dollar crisis, he said.
Over dependency on internal borrowing will impact on the private sector growth and foreign borrowing dependency might be costlier for the government in the upcoming budget, he said.
‘However, we have to depend on internal and external borrowing to meet the budget gap,’ he said.
Former ICMAB president Mohammed Salim delivered the welcome speech where ICMAB secretary Md Kausar Alam and former NBR tax member Ranjan Kumar Bhowmik presented the ICMAB’s pre-budget proposals on value-added tax and income tax.
ICMAB president Md Abdur Rahman Khan said, ‘We submitted a total of 62 proposals regarding VAT, income tax and customs to the NBR.’
‘We proposed introducing automated audit system for the individual taxpayers, adoption of automated audit system and ensuring minimum tax credit facilities for the marginal taxpayers,’ he said.
Kausar in his key note paper suggested that the government should introduce smart taxes system to boost the tax-to GDP ratio.
He proposed introducing master LC facilities for the EPZ businesses for ensuring smooth import facility.
Ranjan Kumar Bhowmik in his keynote paper presented a total of 45 proposals about income tax.
He proposed introducing TDS on capital gain from share transfer of private limited companies and introducing tax on multinational digital platforms.
He also proposed withdrawing the provision of excess perquisite on disallowance of salary expenditure and relaxation on cash payment limit condition for corporate taxpayer which was introduce in FY 22-23.
Economist Sayema Haque Bidisha, Foreign Investors’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry executive director TIM Nurul Kabir and the Financial Express editor Shamsul Huq Zahid were present as discussants at the event.
