Corporate tax system to undergo major changes, says Muhith

FE Report | Published: February 04, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Finance Minister AMA Muhith said Monday the government will bring some fundamental changes in the corporate tax system from the next fiscal year.
"Our corporate tax system is improper. Some fundamental changes in the corporate tax system are essentially to be incorporated from the next fiscal," the finance minister said when leaders of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) met him at his office.
The minister admitted that projects under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives did not advance much due to limitations of the PPP guidelines and contradictions with the Public Procurement Rules (PPR).
"We need to introduce an independent PPP Unit which can run freely without any tussle with other guidelines including the PPR," Mr Muhith said.
Explaining delay in the construction of the Dhaka-Chittagong and the Dhaka-Mymensingh four-lane projects, the minister said appointment of contractors for those projects was inappropriate for which construction work on those projects has been delayed.
"Those projects don't have any financial crisis or designing problem. The appointment of contractors was faulty," the minister said.
About bringing down rates of interest to a single digit, Mr Muhith said all the initiatives taken by the government to reduce rates of interest have gone in vain. The rates of interest in the country don't have any co-relation with the bank rate or the rate of inflation.
"We should try to introduce a system where the rates of interest should have a co-relation with the bank rate and the rate of inflation," the minister said.
Mr Muhtih said one of the major objectives of the government is to increase investment in the next five years. Our slogan for the next five years is 'Increase investment', the Minister said.
Mr Muhith highly appreciated the DCCI initiative of creating new entrepreneurship saying that the government can provide necessary help in this connection.
The DCCI leaders informed the minister that the Chamber has already identified 1,700 projects to be launched soon under the project titled 'Creating 2,000 new entrepreneurs'.
They also proposed to the minister to make the system of bringing foreign financing for the private sector more simple and speedy.
They also requested the Minister for opening up opportunities for investment by local entrepreneurs abroad.
The Minister, however, opposed the idea saying that the government should consider it on case-to-case basis.
Led by DCCI President Mohammad Shajahan Khan, DCCI Director Md. Sabur Khan, Khandakar Shahidul Islam, Nesar Maksud Khan, Abul Hossain, Rezwan Rahman, Ifthekar Uddin and Mustasim Chowdhury were among others who attended the meeting.
UNB adds: The finance minister said the government would go for constructing an expressway from the capital's Zero Point to Mawa on a PPP initiative with an estimated cost of around US$ 1.5 billion.
"The agreement on an expressway from Zero Point to Mawa (on PPP basis) will be finalised within this year with a cost of roughly $ 1.5 billion where our government's involvement would be around $ 100 million," he said.
Asked about the details of the expressway project, Muhith said that the PPP office would soon inform about it.
Earlier, a representative of the Bangladesh Indenting Agents' Association (BIAA) met the Minister and demanded bringing changes in the definition of their business as a service-exporting sector instead of agency.