"Expanding the tax net is very much necessary for improving the tax GDP ratio. Government should take further steps to expand the tax net", said the Institute of Chartered Accountants Bangladesh (ICAB) in it's post budget press conference on Saturday.
ICAB believes that the joint initiative of NBR and ICAB in implementing Document Verification System (DVS) will facilitate to achieve the targeted revenue.
The press conference was held at the CA Bhaban, Karwanbazar in the capital.
The total size of budget amounts to Taka 6,78,064 crores which is equivalent to 15.2% of GDP.
While addressing the press conference, ICAB President Md. Shahadat Hossain FCA said in spite of post pandemic situation, Russia-Ukraine War, and other global uncertainties, government has taken a challenge of implementing development budget of Taka 246,066 crore which is very encouraging step to move forward for a developing country like us.
He said Additional budget in the infrastructure sector is a commendable step taken by the government.
"We also believe that this initiative will bring about transparency and accountability in financial arena. Tax reform may also contribute for improving tax GDP ratio and increasing revenue collection. Implementation of DVS for increasing collection of government revenue has been appreciated in the budget speech", President of the Institute added.
ICAB welcomed the recommendations in Income Tax Laws that include conditional reduction in tax rates for certain types of companies is a good initiative, changing in the rates and areas of withholding taxes is a good initiative as well to facilitate the business activities, introduction of 12% tax rate for all other general industries exporting goods and services and 10% for green industries will encourage diversification of export of goods and services and changing the definitions of amalgamation and research & development, amortization of pre-commencement expenditure and separate provisions for start-up businesses are the business friendly decisions.
Besides, the Institute expressed it's concern on the issues like disallowed the contributions made to a company's Workers' Profit Participation Fund. This will increase tax burden of the compliant businesses, despite of substantial inflationary pressure, tax free limit of individuals remained unchanged and imposition of capital gain tax from investment in government securities will increase the tax burden of the tax payers.
Thanking Prime Minister and Finance Minister for the Budget 2022-23, ICAB said it is business friendly and will help Bangladesh to upgrade gradually to position itself in the middle income group.