Whitening black money for its productive investment
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
M. Abdullah
WHITENING of black money is being suggested from different quarters including the country's chamber bodies. Chamber bodies have made known their specific proposals about the matter. The Jatiya Sangsad (JS) standing committee that examined the issue also give a positive nod to black money whitening. Thus, the move to whiten black money is acquiring a momentum and there is a possibility that the facility could be offered in the country's coming national budget for the next fiscal year.
Revenue is falling, the prospects of adequate foreign aid receipts are in doubt and the current slowdown in some sectors have pointed to the necessity of tapping this huge reserve of money for the economy.
Notwithstanding the opposition from moralists and legalists, the advocacy for giving opportunities under the especially difficult period faced by the economy to whiten black money, merits consideration. But only allowing the black money to be made white with no strings attached is not at all desirable or acceptable. In the past, the government allowed whitening of black money by only taking a part of the money as declared through paying taxes. This practice helped the government to mop up some resources and also to spend the same, without any accountability, into unproductive areas. Thus, there was hardly any justification of such whitening as it played not much role in the productive sectors of the economy.
This time, the chamber bodies as well as the JS committee, have suggested the government to issue bonds against receipts of black money and spend the money thus received through the sale of such bonds into industrialisation, investment operations and employment generation according to mandate. We believe the opportunity to whiten black money in this manner would be really helpful for the economy and definitely better than only allowing the practice for the government to raise resources for unproductive expenditures.
Experts say that a large amount of funds, in the form of black money, could be made available for whitening. This amount, if properly and productively utilised in the formal sectors of the economy, can bring about a great deal of benefits for the economy as a whole. The challenge is to whiten black money to give a new lease of life to productive sectors of the economy. If this can be successfully accomplished, then the protests of the legalists and moralists will not hold much water.
WHITENING of black money is being suggested from different quarters including the country's chamber bodies. Chamber bodies have made known their specific proposals about the matter. The Jatiya Sangsad (JS) standing committee that examined the issue also give a positive nod to black money whitening. Thus, the move to whiten black money is acquiring a momentum and there is a possibility that the facility could be offered in the country's coming national budget for the next fiscal year.
Revenue is falling, the prospects of adequate foreign aid receipts are in doubt and the current slowdown in some sectors have pointed to the necessity of tapping this huge reserve of money for the economy.
Notwithstanding the opposition from moralists and legalists, the advocacy for giving opportunities under the especially difficult period faced by the economy to whiten black money, merits consideration. But only allowing the black money to be made white with no strings attached is not at all desirable or acceptable. In the past, the government allowed whitening of black money by only taking a part of the money as declared through paying taxes. This practice helped the government to mop up some resources and also to spend the same, without any accountability, into unproductive areas. Thus, there was hardly any justification of such whitening as it played not much role in the productive sectors of the economy.
This time, the chamber bodies as well as the JS committee, have suggested the government to issue bonds against receipts of black money and spend the money thus received through the sale of such bonds into industrialisation, investment operations and employment generation according to mandate. We believe the opportunity to whiten black money in this manner would be really helpful for the economy and definitely better than only allowing the practice for the government to raise resources for unproductive expenditures.
Experts say that a large amount of funds, in the form of black money, could be made available for whitening. This amount, if properly and productively utilised in the formal sectors of the economy, can bring about a great deal of benefits for the economy as a whole. The challenge is to whiten black money to give a new lease of life to productive sectors of the economy. If this can be successfully accomplished, then the protests of the legalists and moralists will not hold much water.