Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has proposed to hike excise duty on bank accounts with significant balances in an attempt to increase revenue collection for the next fiscal year, as well as pave the way for recovery of economy battered by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The minister on Thursday (June 11) presented the budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 in the Parliament.
However, excise duty on accounts with balances less than Tk10 lakh has been proposed to keep unchanged.
The move, however, is unlikely to come as a relief to low and mid-income groups as many of them have saw their income go down as economic activities have been seriously hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The minister proposed to increase the excise duty on bank accounts with a balance of more than Tk 10 lakh up to Tk 1 crore from Tk 2,500 to Tk 3,000.