The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) is in favour of legalising undisclosed wealth at the institutional level in the upcoming FY25, which encourages taxpayers to disclose the undisclosed assets.
As per the proposed national budget for FY25, undisclosed money can be legalised against fixed rates for immovable properties and 15 per cent tax rates for other possessions.
Meanwhile, the national professional accounting body thinks that the legalisation of undisclosed income by individuals is a political decision, so there is no comment on this issue. But they are in favour of maintaining ethical standards.
Mohammed Forkan Uddin, president of ICAB, told the journalists in a post-budget reaction on Saturday at its headquarters in the capital.
Mohammed Humayun Kabir, Council Member and Past President of ICAB, raised the question of capital gain and corporate tax at the press conference.
He said, “Has the suicide of investors been prevented by tax benefits in the stock market? Have they stopped emptying the pockets of small investors? We want to fix everything in the stock market with tax benefits.”
Humayun Kabir also said that the charm of the stock market depends on the business or fundamentals of the companies listed in the capital market. This situation in the stock market didn’t happen because of the tax structure.
At the press conference, the founding partner of Snehasish Mahmud & Co., Snehasish Barua, said that if the government takes relatively more debt from the banking sector, the private sector will get less debt.
As a result, investment will be declined, and the higher revenue collection target given to NBR will be disrupted.
He thinks that middle-class taxpayers will get some benefit from the new tax rates in this budget.
The ICAB President said in his written speech that the country's inflation rate is over 9 per cent, which is indicative of hyperinflation. About 20 per cent of the total budget of Tk 1,60,900 crore is proposed to be financed through borrowing from domestic sources, which may lead to inflation.
Forkan Uddin also said that the tax net boost is the need of the hour to increase the tax-to-GDP ratio.
We believe that the joint initiative of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and ICAB in implementing the Document Verification System (DVS) is contributing significantly to achieving the desired revenue and will contribute more in the coming days.
He further said that we thank the Ministry of Finance and the NBR for their support of ICAB in implementing DVS to increase tax revenue.
At the press conference, former president Md Moniruzzaman, Vice President MBM Lutful Hadee, and ICAB Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shubhashish Bose were also present.
