Visiting World Bank vice-president Martin Raiser on Sunday said that the imposition of any new tax measure or tax expenditure should be made through the national budget.
He made the observation after a meeting with finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed at the latter鈥檚 office at the secretariat in the capital Dhaka.
One point is important 鈥� any new tax measure and expenditure require approval and legislation through the budget, said the WB vice-president while briefing reporters about the outcome of the meeting.
Earlier, the finance adviser said that they were not desperate for loans from the WB and the International Monetary Fund since the county鈥檚 external trade balance improved significantly.
He, however, said that they were on track for meeting the multilateral lenders鈥� loan conditions.
Replying to a question whether the IMF has deferred the disbursement of next tranche under the ongoing $4.7 billion loan to June from March, the finance adviser said that he was yet to be informed about any such thing.
On January 9, the interim government raised value-added tax and supplementary duty on more than 100 products despite criticisms that the move would push up the inflation rate which has been prevailing at almost double-digit level for the past three years.
The WB vice-president, who is on a four-day tour (February 8-11) in the capital Dhaka, said they were expecting progress on the separation of tax policy of the revenue board from administration in a month.
He said that the finance adviser informed that a decision had already been made about the long-standing issue.
Earlier, he said that they discussed issues like revenue generation, procurement policy and access to information for improving the transparency and governance.
鈥楽o that people can see what the government is doing,鈥� he said.
In December 2024, the WB approved $500 million in budget support for Bangladesh under an overall package of $1.16 billion.
Earlier, Economic Relations Division secretary Shahriar Kader Siddiky said that the amount of next tranche of the budget support would be finalised in June.