Annual budgeting for the coming fiscal is getting underway amid economic volatility that sets Bangladesh's new custodian of finance to walk a tightrope to make ends meet.
Government's revenue authority has meanwhile sought fiscal proposals from businesses for feedbacks the newly elected finance minister, Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, would cobble in the texture of the national budget for the upcoming financial year (FY) 2024-25.
The successive Awami League governments of Sheikh Hasina, who is now steering into for fourth consecutive tenure in power, have made incremental budget that culminated into the size of Tk 7.62 trillion with the inclusion of several megaprojects in successive annual development programmes.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) Sunday dispatched proposals to businesses, chambers and other stakeholders for submitting their views on fresh fiscal measures to be stipulated in the budget for the next fiscal year.
"Different business chambers and associations have been asked to submit their proposals to the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) by February 4, 2024," says a press release, signed by Syed A Mumen, Director (information) of the NBR.
The revenue board has also urged submitting another softcopy of budget proposals directly to the board through email [email protected] to SM Sohel Raman, First Secretary, VAT wing of the NBR.
The NBR assured the businesses of considering their budget proposals "with utmost priority" in exercising fiscal measures for FY2024-25.
Organizations, companies or entities that are not members of any chamber are also requested to send in their proposal directly to the NBR.
The revenue board has kept inviting budget proposals for long from the taxpayers in a bid to prepare a "participatory, pro-people, industry-, business-and taxpayer-friendly budget".
Officials say rationalisation of tax expenditures would be prioritised in the upcoming budget exercise aiming to raise the country's tax-GDP-ratio by 0.5 per cent in the next year as per targets set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) against its credit support.
Country's tax-to-GDP ratio is 7.9 per cent, rated one of the lowest in the world, which came up for a prod to the taxmen from the finance minister in his first encounter with them in a customs meet few days back.
Revenue officials believe the tax-GDP-ratio could have been increased to double-digit highs through downsizing tax exemptions after an intensive review.
The government set a Tk 4.30-trillion target for the NBR for the current fiscal year. Until December, the board collected Tk 1.65 trillion in revenue in the first half of the budget tenure, leaving a shortfall worth Tk 232.27 billion.
However, the NBR high-ups are upbeat about their abilities to get to the IMF-set target of increasing the tax-GDP ratio by 0.5 per cent in the passing fiscal.
Economists suggest that government priority, this time around, should be set on stabilizing the economy by way of controlling steep inflation and consequent exorbitant consumer prices, enhancing the slim foreign-exchange reserves, pursuing job-centric development and managing other macroeconomic challenges.
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