Revenue target down by Tk11,000cr in current fiscal year
The National Board of Revenue will impose an additional tax in the form of health risk tax on tobacco products to discourage the use of tobacco while reducing corporate tax in the coming fiscal year of 2014-2015, NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain said on Thursday.
It will also reduce the supplementary duty and regulatory duty on import of many items in line with World Trade Organisation’s directives to facilitate international trade, he said at a press briefing at NBR conference room.
He said that the finance ministry had slashed the revenue target by Tk 11,000 crore or 8.08 per cent and set it at Tk 1,25,000 crore for the current fiscal year from previously targeted Tk1,36,090 crore.
‘The NBR will prepare a poor-friendly budget with a progressive taxation approach for next fiscal year wherein the people having more wealth will have to pay more tax,’ Ghulam Hussain said.
In the budget proposal for the next fiscal year, the NBR will present an outline for the budgets for the next five years, he said.
It would also increase tax on products harmful to health and environment, he said.
‘The existing tax rate for tobacco products would be increased. In addition, a new kind of tax namely health risk tax will be imposed on the products,’ he said adding that the NBR was working on the matter.
He said that the revenue to be earned from health risk tax would be given to the organisations working on public health like cancer and heart diseases.
Fresh taxes would also be imposed on chewing tobacco like jarda which virtually remain out of the tax net, Ghulam said.
‘Corporate tax rate would be lowered to the level of individual tax rate of 25 per cent from the existing 37.5 per cent in the next five years,’ he said adding that in most countries corporate tax rate was lower than individual tax rate.
He, however, did not make it clear by what percentage points the tax would be reduced in the next fiscal year.
Reduction of corporate tax would increase the number of taxpayers and reduce the tendency of tax evasion by the corporate sector, he hoped.
In reply to a question on the unusual rise in the wealth of ministers and lawmakers shown in the wealth statements they had submitted to the Election Commission as candidates in the January 5 polls, the NBR chairman said that it was scrutinising the statements in line with the income tax law.
‘There is no bar in the income tax law to examining the wealth statements of ministers and members of parliament submitted by them to the NBR and Election Commission. So we are looking into it,’ he said.
About the status of the bank accounts of Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia, operation of which had been suspended during the rule of the military-backed interim government, he said, ‘The NBR has not received any application from her for withdrawal of the suspension in last 16 months, since I took over the charge.’
The NBR has withdrawn the suspension of the accounts of those who had applied for withdrawal, after scrutinising the accounts, he said.
In August, 2007, the NBR suspended bank accounts of Khaleda Zia and present primeminister Sheikh Hasina. It later activated the bank accounts of Sheikh Hasina on the basis of her application.
BNP has alleged that Khaleda’s bank accounts had not been activated despite her repeated appeal.
Referring to the shortfall in revenue collection, Ghulam Hussain said that even after reduction of the target, the revenue collection fell short by Tk 4,000 as a result of political unrest and slowdown in economic activities in last few months of last year.
‘But we hope we will achieve the target as political situation is now stable, economic activities have returned to normal and development work gained momentum,’ he said.
-With New Age input
