Individuals who are required to submit income tax returns to avail various government services will have to pay a minimum tax of Tk 2,000 even if they don’t have taxable income.

There is no new incentive for local industry development in the proposed fiscal budget

He also proposed keeping the duty in force until June 30 of 2025.

The unquestioned amnesty to bring back money stashed abroad is not going to continue in 2023-24 fiscal year, which begins in July.

“If a person is not liable for tax, how can you really tax the person? This is a desperate attempt to increase direct taxes,” he added.

Now several companies, including Matador, Olympics, Econo, RFL Group and Meghna Group of Industries, manufacture pens in Bangladesh.

There is not much in it to make us feel better in terms of its focus and measures.

The budget for the financial year 2023-2024 has been presented in the Parliament. What do people think of this budget? What do they expect from it?

An underwhelming budget at a time of overwhelming crisis

The prices of face wash items are likely to be increased as the government has proposed increasing tax on face cleansers in the national budget for 2023-24 fiscal year.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has proposed a duty-free facility for containers carrying import and export goods in 2023-24 fiscal year.

A total of Tk 6,597 crore has been proposed for Civil Aviation and Tourism Ministry in the budget for 2023-24 fiscal aiming at upgrading the aviation sector as well as expanding tourism industry to meet the global standards.

The stock market stakeholders have been demanding for widening the tax gap between listed and non-listed companies by lowering the corporate tax for listed companies in order to encourage more companies to go public.

We should have focused on addressing the macro-fundamentals, which would create a launching pad for the coming year’s fiscal flow.

In the context of ongoing crisis and problems, the macroeconomic projections announced in the budget are illusional and unattainable, the Centre for Policy Dialogue said in its instant budget reaction.

The budget document has done a routine job of presenting estimates of earnings and proposals for expenditures. In doing so, it has been cast within the framework of politically determined targets of GDP growth, inflation rate, and budget deficit. The additional consideration of meeting the conditions of IMF loan has also come in, although not explicitly mentioned.

The government is upgrading its document filing and transfer system to improve its decision-making process, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said in his budget speech today.

Less than 3 per cent of people of Bangladesh will be below the poverty line and extreme poverty will be reduced to zero by then, he said in his budget speech.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today in his budget speech hoped that the ongoing stress in the foreign exchange reserves would improve in a short period of time.

Shanta Asset Management Ltd Vice Chairman Arif Khan talks to The Daily Star about the aspects of the new national budget