DHAKA: The government is mulling over on imposing minimum tax on every individual aiming to boost country’s revenue income.

Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith made the disclosure while addressing a seminar on revenue planning for 2015-16FY national budget arranged by Policy Research Institute (PRI) in city’s Banani area on Saturday.

He commented, “It is very shameful that only 1.1 million people pay tax in the country. I have been pondering over imposing taxes on every individual. Every individual should pay tax.”

With PRI chief Dr Zaidi Sattar in the chair, Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (MCCI) president Nasim Majur, Bangladesh Bank (BB) former governor Farashuddin, Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) executive director Dr Mustafizur Rahman and Association of Bankers, Bangladesh Limited (ABBD) vice-chairman Anis A Khan were, among others, present in the seminar.

PRI vice-chairman Dr Sadiq Ahmed and executive director Dr Ahsan H Mansur presented keynote in the seminar.

Dr Mansur mentioned, ‘Every year, we fail to collect an average of around 2.1 percent of targeted amount of revenue under 6th Five Year Planning’.

He further said this failure was due to collecting the revenue through National Board of Revenue (NBR).

Some recommendations, including imposing tax on smoking materials, collecting revenue from salaries, increase the number of tax payers and increase the number of RMG and knitwear exporters, were presented in keynote speech to collect the target in acquiring revenue in 2015-16FY.

The PRI executive director also asked to impose tax on ‘bidi’ and low quality cigarettes.

BDST: 1600 HRS, MAY 09, 2015,update:1830 HRS,
SR/RR