National Board of Revenue chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan on Tuesday said that the government would focus on removing non-tariff barriers in the budget for the forthcoming financial year 2025-26.
He also said that removing the non-tariff barriers would subsequently remove the hurdles from the path of the businesses, and that was their main target.
He made the statements while responding to various demands from businesses at a pre-budget discussion with trade bodies from various sectors in the capital Dhaka.
鈥楾he target is to enhance revenue collection, providing comfort to the businesspeople through creating congenial atmosphere for them through removing all the obstacles. We鈥檙e working to this end,鈥� he said.
Abdur Rahman said that they planned to develop a business application to ease trades.
鈥楾he businesses will preserve all sorts of records in that app, which will ultimately help them calculate their taxes, including the VAT, properly,鈥� he said.
The NBR chairman also said that their main target was to expand the tax net, and the time has come for those who have been paying taxes at reduced rates and have had tax exemptions for a long time to pay taxes at actual rates.
鈥業t is high time to phase out from the tax exemption culture, there will be some tax exemptions of course, but that will be for the sake of encouraging new investments,鈥� he added.
He also said that there were some problems regarding tariff valuation and the HS code, and the NBR would try to address the matters separately.
In the pre-budget discussion, the apparel industry stakeholders, including the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association and Bangladesh Textile Mills Association, urged the NBR to retain the existing corporate tax rates for the readymade garment sector in the forthcoming budget.
Currently, the corporate tax is 12 per cent for export-oriented garment factories and 10 per cent for green factories, which will remain effective till June 30, 2028.
The BKMEA urged the NBR to exempt VAT on goods and services required for export-oriented readymade garment factories and provide tax relief on the import of fire safety equipment during replacement or reinstallation.
The BTMA proposed setting a minimum tariff value for fabric based on local production costs compared with international market prices, which would also follow the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission recommendation.
They also proposed allowing duty-free clearance of goods without bonds upon certification from the BTMA, and to exempt VAT at the production and supply stages for recycled fibre raw materials, such as garment waste or 鈥榡hut鈥�, collected locally.
The SME Foundation suggested exempting new small and medium enterprises from the minimum tax on turnover or gross receipts for up to 10 years.
They also proposed allowing quarterly VAT return submissions for SMEs with an annual turnover of up to Tk聽5 crore. The Foundation sought a 10-year tax holiday for leather, leather goods, garment accessories, and backward linkage industries.
In its proposals, the Bangladesh Society for the Change and Advocacy Nexus (B-SCAN), a volunteer organisation, urged the NBR to raise the tax-free income threshold for persons with disabilities to Tk聽6 lakh from the existing Tk聽4.75 lakh.
It demanded that the monthly allowances for people with disabilities be raised to Tk聽5,000, depending on the type of disability.
The organisation also suggested hiking taxes on tobacco products.