United News of Bangladesh

Finance Adviser  Salehuddin Ahmed on Tuesday hinted at some possible changes in his budgetory proposal in whitening black money in 2025-26 fiscal year. “We are not saying that we have done a great job by giving chance to whiten black money, this might happen sometime due to compulsion, we will look into the matter,” he said. The adviser made the statement while responding to a question at the post budget press conference held at Osmani Memorial Auditorium. He said that the provision given in the proposed budget is to legalise the legally earned money that was not disclosed due to various reasons. Interim govt decides to stop provision of whitening black money “It has to aspects: one is ethical and the other is practical, we will consider the matter,” the adviser said while responding to a question. He said that bringing back siphoned-off money is a tough job as the people involved in this  are very intelligent and they use layering system for it. He mentioned it needed time. In this connection, he said that it took 18 years for Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos and 20 years in Nigeria. “We have said that it would take time, we have started the process,” he said adding that it would have been better for him to formulate the budget easily if the laudered money could be brought. The adviser said that it would be better for him if he got more internal resources, tax and VAT. “If we make the country corruption free, could bring back the siphoned money, then we do not need budget support from the IMF and World Bank,” he said. He also mentioned that Bangladesh economy is now on the highway crossing the muddy roads.    

The Tk 556,978 crore budget for 2020-21 fiscal containing the outline of salvaging the economy from the grasp of COVID-19 will be placed on Thursday next.

Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) on Saturday recommended raising the tax-free income threshold level from Tk 250,000 to Tk 350,000 and not keeping the provision of black money whitening facility in the national budget for 2020-‘21 fiscal year.