Hailing the proposed national budget, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) has said financing a huge sum of money from internal sources through borrowing could raise inflation.
About huge internal borrowings, ICAB president Forkan Uddin says from the macro-economic perspective, the country's inflation rate is over 9.0 per cent, which is indicative of high inflation.
"About 20 per cent of the total budget or approximate Tk 1.6 trillion is proposed to be financed through borrowing from domestic sources, which may lead to inflation," he adds. Mr Forkan came up with the opinion at a post-budget press conference at the ICAB head office in the city's Karwanbazar area on Saturday.
ICAB vice-president MBM Lutful Hade, council member and past president Mohammed Humayun Kabir, and CEO Shubhashish Bose, among others, attended the event.
Snehasish Barua, partner at Snehasish Mahmud & Co, made a brief presentation on the 2024-25 fiscal budget.
Addressing the programme, Mr Forkan said the finance minister presented a timely and huge budget proposal, which was 14.2 per cent of the country's total GDP.
Amid issues like Russia-Ukraine war, unbridled inflation, price spiral, dollar dearth, slowdown in investment and employment and other uncertainties, the government has taken up a challenge of implementing the development budget of Tk 2.65 trillion, he added.
"It will play an assistive role in our journey to become a developed country," continued Mr Forkan.
Accentuating the need to widen tax net, ICAB leaders said the collaboration between the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the ICAB in implementing the document verification system (DVS) has been contributing significantly to achieving desired revenue.
They suggested that the government further consider a similar tax structure for public universities and other autonomous educational as well as skills development institutions.
During a question-answer session, Mr Kabir said there were chances of undisclosed money being piled up with corporate entities, thanks to a favourable tax regime in the country.
"From such a context, the amnesty of whitening the undisclosed money is acceptable," he maintained.
However, this ICAB past president did not comment on the similar opportunities at individual level. Other ICAB office bearers also echoed his view on the issue.
Before the introduction of the DVS, Mr Forkan said, there were many companies who maintained more than one financial report and they could not formally declare their undisclosed money.
"Thanks to this opportunity, they will be able to legalise the money by paying 15 per cent tax. This will increase the amount of wealth displayed in the country in future, and the government's taxes will also increase," he commented.
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