According to Finance Ministry sources, the second budget of Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, which he will place at 3pm in Parliament, will have to bear some extra burden due to various stimulus packages that the government already announced to fight against coronavirus.
The government in 19 stimulus packages allotted some Tk 103,117 crore which is 3.7 percent of the GDP.
The size of the outgoing fiscal budget was Tk 523,190 crore, but later it was reduced to Tk 501,577 crore in the revised budget.
The GDP growth for the next fiscal has been fixed at 8 percent with average inflation of 5 percent like the previous years.
The National Economic Council (NEC) already approved the Annual Development Programme (ADP) of Tk 205,145 crore for 2020-21 fiscal giving importance to transportation, education, health and agriculture sectors.
The Finance Minister in his budget speech will give the details of the outline the government has chalked out to fight back against the COVID-19 that significantly impacted the country's economy.
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Finance Ministry sources said that he will describe various steps the government has already taken to face the adverse impact of the COVID-19 and save lives and livelihoods.
The budget will contain clear directives regarding saving the overall economy, agriculture, industries, SME and trade and business.
The budget will give special focus on post-COVID-19 employment, investment, food security, social safety net and medical services.
It will propose to expand social safety net schemes for bringing some 9.8 million beneficiaries under its net from existing 8.1 million while the allocation in this sector would be increased by Tk 1,633 crore.
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‘Option to whiten black money’
According to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) sources, there will be no imposition of new taxes on taxpayers in the new budget, but the government will expand the tax net to bring more eligible people under it.
There would be no change in the income tax free ceiling for the individual taxpayers and might remain the same at Tk 250,000.
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Besides, corporate tax rates might be slashed for non-listed companies by 2.5 percent.
The government might allow the scope of whitening black money through a flat rate without any question of its source for the betterment of investment in the country to revamp the economy which is almost at a standstill situation like other countries due to COVID-19 pandemic.
Of the total Tk 556,978 crore budget, Tk 337,888 crore will be utilised for government expenditure, while the government earnings has been fixed at Tk 378,000 crore. The budget deficit has been fixed at Tk 178,978 crore, which is 5.64 percent of the GDP.
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The NBR will have to provide Tk 330,000 crore as revenue earnings while non-NBR sector will provide Tk 33,000 crore and non-tax revenue Tk 15,000 crore.
To finance the deficit budget, Tk 113,000 crore will come from internal sources and Tk 77,000 crore from external sources.
Of the internal sources, banks will provide Tk 88,000 crore while the government will collect Tk 20,000 crore from national savings certificates.
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