BANGLADESH Economic Association (BEA) has suggested, more reasonably that the government should more rely on income tax instead of entirely focusing on Value Added Tax (VAT) which the Finance Minister has vowed to fix at 15 percent from July 1 under the new VAT Law. The government has been realizing 7 percent VAT with variable rates and in some cases under certain package system for the benefits of small business. But the Finance Minister made it almost clear this time that the rates under the new VAT Law will be flat to all — no matter it may prove discriminatory to treat big and small business on the same footing. They will have to pay similar rates ignoring that a small business has lower capacity than a bigger business to pay.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is opposed to variable VAT rates on the ground that multi-layer VAT system is problematic to realize. It appears that the government is determined to increase its revenue collection target for over Tk 400,267 crore budget for 2017-18. It is a very big budget as the government ever becoming bigger every year with many mega projects in the list of many luxury and wasteful expenses for helping the corruption for politics. Then profligate life style of the government and wasteful expenses are too open not to look too shameless.
But the biggest part of the revenue budget is going to pay higher salaries and allowances to maintain a rich government. To the people in power, there is every opportunity for big corruption. The people are subjected to pay heavy taxes, VAT. There is no public accountability of the government so the people pay tax, VAT for no service. Services have to be obtained in most cases by bribing.
Extortions and corruptions are at every level of the government and big project means bigger corruption and more misuse of taxpayers fund. Frankly speaking, our people can’t afford to maintain such a luxurious profligate government and its rich life style. So we must say the quality of public expenditure must be ensured before the government is going to take every extra revenue from tax-payers.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is opposed to variable VAT rates on the ground that multi-layer VAT system is problematic to realize. It appears that the government is determined to increase its revenue collection target for over Tk 400,267 crore budget for 2017-18. It is a very big budget as the government ever becoming bigger every year with many mega projects in the list of many luxury and wasteful expenses for helping the corruption for politics. Then profligate life style of the government and wasteful expenses are too open not to look too shameless.
But the biggest part of the revenue budget is going to pay higher salaries and allowances to maintain a rich government. To the people in power, there is every opportunity for big corruption. The people are subjected to pay heavy taxes, VAT. There is no public accountability of the government so the people pay tax, VAT for no service. Services have to be obtained in most cases by bribing.
Extortions and corruptions are at every level of the government and big project means bigger corruption and more misuse of taxpayers fund. Frankly speaking, our people can’t afford to maintain such a luxurious profligate government and its rich life style. So we must say the quality of public expenditure must be ensured before the government is going to take every extra revenue from tax-payers.
