ZCZC
BSS-55
MUHITH-BUDGET-FY19-TWO (DHAKA)
The salaries and allowances of government servants, interest payment and subsidies will account for over half of the non-development expenditure.
In the proposed budget, 27.34 per cent of the total outlay has been allocated for social infrastructure of which 24.37 per cent allocation will go to human resource development, 30.99 per cent for physical infrastructure of which 12.68 per cent will go to overall agriculture, 11.43 per cent for overall communication sector and 5.36 per cent for power and energy sector.
Besides, 25.30 per cent of total allocation has been proposed for general services and 4.78 per cent for Public Private Partnership (PPP), financial assistance for various industries, subsidies and equity investments in various nationalised corporations, banks, and financial institutions, 11.05 per cent for interest payment and the rest 0.54 for net lending and other expenditures.
In FY2018-19, the total revenue income has been estimated at Tk 3,39,280 crore and out of this target, an amount of Tk 2,96,201 crore will come from the NBR sources. Alongside, Tk 9,727 crore will come as tax from non-NBR sources while Tk 33,352 crore from non-tax sources.
“I believe that this target is realistic. Because, huge reforms in terms of manpower restructuring and business process reengineering have already been implemented in NBR. The economic activities of the country currently remain stable. The trend in tax compliance in the country is quite satisfactory and by ensuring the continuation of this trend, the revenue collection target appears to be achievable,” said Muhith.
The minister has kept the tax exemption threshold unchanged for the next fiscal year except that of the threshold for a parent or guardian of a person with disability will be Tk 400,000 in place of Tk 375,000.
Mentioning the tax rates for banks and financial institutions as a bit higher than other corporate sector, the finance minister has proposed to reduce the tax rate for banks and financial institutions by 2.5 percent at 37.5 percent.
He has proposed to reduce the tax rate of manufacturer and exporter of readymade garments to 15 percent and if any such taxpayer is a public limited company, the tax rate will be 12.5 percent. Any garment factory having green building certification shall enjoy a tax rate of 12 percent.
As Value Added Tax (VAT) is the single largest source of the government tax revenue collected by the National Board of Revenue (NBR), the minister proposed to bring truncated VAT rates down to 5 rates from existing 9 VAT rates. He also proposed to increase the price of cigar and supplementary duty on it.
“I expect that by implementing the budget proposals revenue targets will be achieved and culture of tax compliance will further deepen,” he added.
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