A seminar on “Towards a Conducive Tax System: The Reform Imperative and Priorities,” was organised by Resurgent Bangladesh – a platform jointly formed by Metropolitan Chamber (MCCI), Dhaka Chamber (DCCI), BUILD, Chittagong Stock Exchange and Policy Exchange.
The DCCI president spoke about a particular incident stating that if the National Board of Revenue (NBR) continued to tax materials brought in for investment in EPZs, no matter how hard the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (Beza) and Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (Bida) tried, foreign investment would not come to the country.
It is obvious that the decisions and policies the NBR was taking to increase revenue were not business-friendly. There had been no major reform in the revenue sector since 1991. The NBR itself adopted policies and implemented them itself.Due to frequent policy changes and lack of a business-friendly tax structure, investment in the country had not been increasing. Even if the Prime Minister’s Office, including Bida and Beza, undertook many initiatives to get foreign investment, it would not be of much use.
To put an end to harassment of businessmen, the businessmen called for the formulation of long-term tax policies, separation of tax policy and tax administration and ensuring digitisation. There should be separate tax policy units under the Ministry of Finance and a fully autonomous revenue administration with a stable operational revenue policy and independent operational capacity for business and investment.
Unfortunately the NBR was still operating on a certificate-based tax system like the British-era zamindars. The NBR demands taxes from businessmen according to its own needs. If a company does not pay it, all the bank accounts of that company are confiscated. Then the company can’t pay suppliers’ bills and workers’ salaries. Even if the company wins after a long lawsuit, it becomes unable to run its business. In this case, it is important to make arrangements to collect compensation from the NBR official who decides to seize bank accounts.
As a direct result of the NBR’s erratic and erroneous policies, the tax-to-GDP ratio is lower now than it was 10 years ago. The government speaks of revenue sector reform in every five-year plan, but no reform takes place. Without tax structure reform, only by encouraging corruption nothing good will come.
The DCCI president spoke about a particular incident stating that if the National Board of Revenue (NBR) continued to tax materials brought in for investment in EPZs, no matter how hard the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (Beza) and Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (Bida) tried, foreign investment would not come to the country.
It is obvious that the decisions and policies the NBR was taking to increase revenue were not business-friendly. There had been no major reform in the revenue sector since 1991. The NBR itself adopted policies and implemented them itself.Due to frequent policy changes and lack of a business-friendly tax structure, investment in the country had not been increasing. Even if the Prime Minister’s Office, including Bida and Beza, undertook many initiatives to get foreign investment, it would not be of much use.
To put an end to harassment of businessmen, the businessmen called for the formulation of long-term tax policies, separation of tax policy and tax administration and ensuring digitisation. There should be separate tax policy units under the Ministry of Finance and a fully autonomous revenue administration with a stable operational revenue policy and independent operational capacity for business and investment.
Unfortunately the NBR was still operating on a certificate-based tax system like the British-era zamindars. The NBR demands taxes from businessmen according to its own needs. If a company does not pay it, all the bank accounts of that company are confiscated. Then the company can’t pay suppliers’ bills and workers’ salaries. Even if the company wins after a long lawsuit, it becomes unable to run its business. In this case, it is important to make arrangements to collect compensation from the NBR official who decides to seize bank accounts.
As a direct result of the NBR’s erratic and erroneous policies, the tax-to-GDP ratio is lower now than it was 10 years ago. The government speaks of revenue sector reform in every five-year plan, but no reform takes place. Without tax structure reform, only by encouraging corruption nothing good will come.
