Legalising black money: Kamal drops hints of continuation
Staff Correspondent
Staff Correspondent
The controversial move to legalise untaxed money with ease, which was absent in Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal s proposed fiscal measures for the next financial year, might continue, after all. If [the step] is profitable, we will try to continue it. We will see one more month before taking any decision, Kamal said at a post-budget media briefing yesterday.
The option to legalise untaxed income was always present in some form but in June last year, Kamal had expanded the ambit for it.
At present, black money can be whitened by investing it in any sector and without facing any questions on the source of the funds. This opening is due to close at the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.
The budget has not proposed any direct cash support to revive the cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs) sector, where millions of workers lost jobs, though the government proposed some short tax-relief measures. Rather, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal emphasised proper implementation of the previous stimulus packages of more than Tk 1.24 lakh crore for them.
In a surprising move, the government has reduced the internal procurement target of food grains for the coming year, even though it had reached its lowest just two months ago in the current year. It has also failed to control food prices, especially that of rice – a staple in every Bangali household. Experts believe the government did not put enough thought on wellbeing of
Poverty steadily reduced for 30 years until 2019. Then came the pandemic. Achievements made in three decades have almost been wiped out in just one year and three months after the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in Bangladesh in March 2020. Different organisations working on poverty alleviation and economists have repeatedly demanded wider social safety net programmes