20pc domestic debt could fuel inflation

Mahfuz Emran: To meet the deficit, the government will take a loan of Tk 160,900 crore from internal sources, which is about 20 percent of the proposed budget. The President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) Mohammad Forkan Uddin FCA has expressed fear that such a large amount of debt may further fuel inflation.
ICAB former president Humayun Kabir raised the question, ‘Has the suicide of investors been prevented by tax benefits in share market? Has it stopped emptying the pockets of small investors? We want to fix everything in the stock market by giving tax benefits. He also said that the stock market will improve depending on the business or fundamentals of the companies listed in the stock market. He commented that this situation of the stock market did not happen because of the tax structure.
ICAB does not support the possibility of black money laundering for individuals; Again, the company did not oppose. In this context, ICAB President Mohammad Forkan Uddin said, ‘The issue of legalizing undisclosed income of individuals is a political decision; So, no comment on this. But ICAB is in favor of maintaining ethical standards.
ICAB favors legalization of undisclosed income at institutional level. Forkan Uddin also said that tax net expansion is the need of the hour to increase the tax-GDP ratio. Besides, autonomous institutions engaged in education and human resource development, professional and vocational educational institutions can also be brought under the same tax structure under the Seventh Schedule as government universities.
He said that the finance minister has presented a timely and comprehensive budget of Tk 7 lakh 97 thousand crores for the financial year 2024-25 in Parliament. The proposed budget is 14.2 percent of GDP. Despite Russia-Ukraine war, high inflation, rising commodity prices, global crisis, dollar crisis, slowdown in business-investment and employment and other global uncertainties, the government has taken up the challenge of implementing the development budget.
ICAB member Snehashish Barua highlighted various aspects of the budget. He said that if the government takes relatively more loans from the banking sector, the private sector will get less loans. As a result, investment will be less. Higher revenue collection targets given to NBR will be disrupted. According to him, because of the new tax rates in this budget, the bottom line of individual taxpayers and the top taxpayers will be under pressure; However, middle class taxpayers will get some relief.