Budget to 'rationalise' rate, cut layers

The budget for the upcoming fiscal year, 2018-19, would explore ways for 'rationalising' the existing corporate tax rate in the country, Finance Minister A M A Muhith said in the capital on Monday.

"The current corporate tax rate in Bangladesh is quite high, and there are many layers depending on types (of the corporate entities)," he said after a pre-budget meeting with the editors of top newspapers.

"However, we are planning to rationalise this high corporate tax rate as well as to reduce the number of layers."

"We will bring down the number of corporate tax layers to two," the finance minister further said.

The meeting also decided that the government would think of imposing tax on advertisements provided on Facebook and Google (from the country), he added.

In addition, the meeting also decided to reduce the existing tax and VAT (value added tax) on newsprint and to introduce landing fee on Indian channels aired in Bangladesh.

[email protected]