Business Desk :
The government plans to introduce a 12 per cent unified tax rate for all general industries that export goods and services to encourage diversification of export goods and ensure a level playing field in the upcoming 2022-23 financial year.
While presenting a Tk 6,78,064 crore budget for FY2022-23 in parliament on Thursday,
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal also called for 10 per cent tax on all green industries exporting goods and services.
He also proposed to raise the source tax on export earnings from 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent in the next fiscal year.
In his budget speech, the minister said, “The prevailing tax rate for the export oriented RMG sector stands at 12 per cent for general factories and 10 per cent for green factories.
“With a view to encouraging diversification of export goods and ensuring a level playing field for all other sectors exporting goods and services, I propose to introduce 12 per cent tax rate for all other general industries exporting goods and services and 10 per cent for all other green industries exporting goods and services.”
“This sort of export-friendly initiative will bring down trade deficit with other countries. As a result, deficit in current account, a major economic indicator, will be minimized,” he added.
Regarding source tax, Kamal said that rationalizing the tax rate carried immense importance in formulating revenue policy. In view of this, and in line with the existing corporate tax rate, he proposed to raise the rate of source tax on export proceeds to 1 per cent from 0.5 per cent.
He said, “Export is the main source of foreign currency for the country. Export business plays a vital role in achieving economic prosperity. In order to increase the contributions of the export sector to our GDP, long-term tax incentive have been granted to goods ‘Made in Bangladesh’ and services in the last fiscal year. “As a continuation of that effort, initiatives should be taken to create new export sectors, to diversify goods and to search for new export markets so that ‘Made in Bangladesh’ can be made a global brand. Also, service export should be given due priority alongside goods export.”
