Staff correspondent :<\/p>\n
Citing reforms in the revenue and banking
\nsectors as two most important challenges before the country’s economy,
\nAdviser to the interim government on the Ministries of Finance and Commerce
\nDr Salehuddin Ahmed today vowed to continue such reforms.<\/p>\n
“Immediately the challenges that lie before us are that revenue and banking
\nsectors reform, the reforms in other sectors and political fronts will follow
\nthese,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Finance Adviser was addressing at a discussion on the changes brought in
\ndirect taxation through Finance Act, 2024 as the chief guest at the Multipurpose
\nHall of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) in the capital’s Agargaon area today.<\/p>\n
NBR Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan addressed the event with President of
\nBangladesh Civil Service (Taxation) Association M Lutful Azim in the chair.<\/p>\n
Association Secretary General Sheikh Shamim Bulbul delivered the welcome
\nspeech while Tax Policy member AKM Badiul Alam and Tax Admin and Human
\nResource Management member GM Abul Kalam Kaikobad also spoke.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the government’s efforts to bolster the financial sector
\nreforms, he said, “We’re willing and serious in banking and revenue sector
\nreforms and please supplement your (tax officials’) efforts in this
\nregard…Please make fast.”<\/p>\n
Mentioning that transparency and accountability should be the most important
\nthings, the adviser asked the tax officials to collect tax as much as
\npossible for meeting the demands. “But, don’t collect tax through putting
\npressure on the common people, don’t cause pain to them so that people become
\nassured seeing you…And they come to pay tax voluntarily,” he continued.<\/p>\n
He said now there is a tendency among common taxpayers that they would not
\ncome close to the tax officials to avoid harassment. “Please assure the
\ntaxpayers so that they could overcome such fear,” the finance and commerce
\nadviser added.<\/p>\n
Urging all concerned irrespective of their class and creed to take part in
\nrevenue generation, Dr Salehuddin, also in-charge of the Ministry of Science
\nand Technology, said: “We want to make the country self reliant…Although
\nit’s not possible now to become cent percent reliant as we’ll have to still
\nbring resources from abroad.”<\/p>\n
He said apart from restoring the law and order situation, the biggest problem
\nis the current economic condition.<\/p>\n
The adviser said a visiting US-delegation will put priority on the economy
\nwhile a series of discussions in this regard would take place in the next
\ncouple of days.<\/p>\n
“They (USA) might help us according to our needs…At least we can say we’ve
\nstarted the tax reforms, motivating the officials…Then they might be
\nassured to some extent….” he added.<\/p>\n
The Finance Adviser noted some people have become restless to some extent
\nover the last one month of the interim government to see the performances
\nadding: “But, I can say at least in the financial sector, some visible steps
\nhave been taken like scraping the provision for whitening the black money,
\nreforms are being taken place in the banking sector.”<\/p>\n
He went on saying, “We’ve already made the start and we’ll aspire to attain
\nour desired target with the help of yours… Reforms in health, social
\nsectors will take some time.”<\/p>\n
Noting that the first principle of the government should be not to make any
\nwastage of public funds, he said the government would not reduce the target
\nfor realizing revenues.<\/p>\n
“We’ll try to meet all the needs and expenditures through arranging resources
\nof our own. But, it’s also true that our own resources alone will not only
\nwork, but also external funding is needed apart from technical assistance,”
\nDr Salehuddin said, adding that it should be kept in mind that the country
\nshould not become reliant on others.<\/p>\n
“There is a saying that if your hands are in somebody’s pocket, if he moves,
\nthen you have to move and we’re feeling that in every aspect,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The donor agencies always try to suggest the government, but the government
\nis trying to assert…We don’t want to become fully dependent on the
\ndevelopment partners,” the adviser said.<\/p>\n
Citing that many of the development projects are not being taken based on
\nself needs or as per the requirements of the country, Dr Salehuddin said the
\ngovernment would try to undertake projects after proper scrutiny.<\/p>\n
“We’ll definitely take those projects which would be beneficial for us. In
\naddition, if there is any requirement for foreign funding, then we’ll explore
\nthat,” he added.<\/p>\n
Noting that direct tax is very important, he said the stake of direct tax in
\nBangladesh’s revenue share is relatively less while the indirect tax like VAT
\nis higher.<\/p>\n
Mentioning that the basic principle of tax is equity and ability to pay, he
\nsaid the tax burden should not be imposed only on some people and businesses.<\/p>\n
Reminding the NBR officials that all concerned are staring at the faces of
\nthe NBR personnel, he said that no taxpayer should fear the revenue board
\nstaff while all should be rest assured of getting justice side by side there
\nshould be no leakage.<\/p>\n
Noting that the tax officials discharge an import duty of the government, the
\nadviser asked them to carry out their duties and responsibilities with more
\ncaution and sincerity.<\/p>\n
He informed that a discussion would be held tomorrow with the US-delegation
\nwhere the issues related to tax reforms, banking sector reforms, customs,
\ntariff, avoidance of double taxation would get priority.<\/p>\n
He said if the government does not improve the regulatory regime, then it
\nwould not be possible to attract much more FDI, FPI and portfolio investment.<\/p>\n
“So, responsibilities upon you are high and please complete your tasks in a
\nspeedy manner… Don’t do postmortem, rather become proactive with a focus in
\nfuture,” the adviser asked the tax officials.<\/p>\n
Referring to his fellow colleague Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud’s comment on the NBR
\nbuilding as ‘impressive’, Dr Salehuddin said the nice outlook of the
\nstructure might become necessary in some cases to convince people.<\/p>\n
“But please also uphold your inherent talents and wisdom…Please match your
\nwords and work with the nice outlook of the structure of the NBR building,”
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
Citing that in direct taxation, the system in the USA is one of the best, the
\nadviser said USA’s system is very strict and it is very hard to attain such
\nthe USA standard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Staff correspondent : Citing reforms in the revenue and banking sectors as two most important challenges before the country’s economy, Adviser to the interim government on the Ministries of Finance and Commerce Dr Salehuddin Ahmed today vowed to continue such reforms. “Immediately the challenges that lie before us are that revenue and banking sectors reform, the reforms in other sectors and political fronts will follow these,” he said. The Finance Adviser was addressing at a discussion on the changes brought in direct taxation through Finance Act, 2024 as the chief<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bangladesh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11085,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083\/revisions\/11085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}