Al Amin :
The Businesses and regular taxpayers alleged that the unachievable proposed revenue collection target and unequal tax policy will put them under pressure further and will encourage taxpayers to evade taxes.
The revenue collection has been projected Tk 3.3 trillion in the proposed budget for the next fiscal year without finalizing any roadmap on how to collect the revenue, they added.
They, however, said the government has taken several steps, including reduction of corporate taxes and Value-Added Tax (VAT) in some cases to protect domestic industries and exempted of Advance Tax on some essential goods import to meet the unwanted food shortage.
Moreover, there are no strong directions to widen the tax net and to curb tax, VAT and duty evasion in the proposed budget, the businesses said. On the other hand, illegal money earners are laundering crores of Taka every year, but the government has failed to stop the tendency, they added.
Following this situation, businesses and regular taxpayers think that they will remain under pressure to realize the revenue target. Officials of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) said that the target is big and challenging as per the present context. But, two sectors-Tobacco and Mobile-will be given importance for realizing the revenue target.Besides, NBR expected 15 to 20 per cent business growth in the next fiscal year as the business condition is improving day-by-day locally and internationally. If that happen, then it will be able to achieve the revenue target, the officials added.
Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute (PRI) told The New Nation, “Normally, the taxpayers will pay revenue from what they earn. But, the problem creates, when NBR puts extra-pressure on them.”
He further said, “The proposed revenue collection is unachievable at the present context of business condition. As a result, the regular taxpayers are likely to be given pressure to achieve the target, which will be unjust.”
Mohammad Hatem, Senior Vice-President of BKMEA, said, “The proposed target of revenue collection will not be achieved at all and the additional tax collection mentality will put pressure on honest taxpayers. In fact it will encourage evading taxes.”
“For an example, the NBR is taking 0.5 per cent Advance Income Tax (AIT) on export procedure. But it is not giving final settlement, although it did in the past. Through the procedure, NBR is keeping the path open for corruption and torture on the honest taxpayers,” he added.
Rizwan Rahman, President of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI), said, “Achieving the private sector investment target of 25 per cent of the total GDP of the country and the 15-20 per cent business growth, the credit flow in the private sector needs to be further increased.”
“If the business confidence and environment are not being developed further amid the ongoing pandemic situation, the expected investment in the private sector will not be increased. In this case, the honest taxpayers will remain under pressure,” he said.
Currently, the credit flow in the private sector is around 14 per cent which is much less than the target, he added.
Besides, I think the government will have to take effective steps to create opportunities to attract foreign investment, the DCCI president said.
The government has implemented only 46.3 percent of the total allocation of the annual development programme (ADP) in first ten months of the current fiscal year blaming the pandemic situation. So, the government should fix the target as much as achievable, Rizwan said
