Tax exemption and tax holiday facilities, which the government offers for industrial growth, cost Tk 154 billion in revenue or 2.5 per cent of the country's GDP (gross domestic product) a year.
National Board of Revenue (NBR) chairman Dr. Nasiruddin Ahmed said this quoting a finding of the Bangladesh Bank report, unveiled in a conference in London School of Economics last month.
The government will have to continue with the tax holiday facility until 2012, while it expects a double digit GDP growth by 2017. For the current fiscal, the government estimates a 5.5 per cent growth in GDP. The Country's GDP size was Tk 6149.43 billion in 2008-09.
Internal revenue earning has been sluggish due to large scale tax exemption, which should be stopped through framing a separate law, said the NBR chief, who is also the secretary of the internal resources division (IRD) under ministry of Finance.
The country's tax-GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the world, which is a shame for the nation, he said adding that tax-GDP ratio never crossed 9.0 per cent in Bangladesh. |
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