Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Thursday proposed an increase of the corporate tax by 5 per cent on publicly listed mobile phone and tobacco manufacturing companies.
Muhith in his budget speech for the financial year 2013-14 proposed that the corporate tax for listed mobile phone companies and tobacco companies would be 40 per cent from existing 35 per cent.
Among the six mobile phone companies operating in the country only Grameenphone is listed with the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges.
The GP, the largest mobile operator of the country with a subscriber base of 4.23 crore, reported 7 per cent decline in its net profit to Tk 1,750.47 crore in 2012.
British American Tobacco Bangladesh is the only tobacco manufacturing company listed with the bourses and it reported net profit of 394.16 crore in 2012.
Corporate tax on other sectors including banks, insurance and other financial institutions remained the same as the previous budget.
Asked about the issue in a statement GP said, ‘We view this as another attempt to penalize the successful and responsible companies. We belong to an industry that is already heavily taxed and this will be an extra burden. This will affect our general shareholders as it will have a negative impact on the dividend. Moreover this move will discourage other companies which are considering to be listed in the stock market. It is also worth mentioning that Grameenphone is the only listed mobile operator in the country who will be directly affected by this change.’
-With New Age input
