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Source: The Financial Express

The Tk 2000 minimum tax for eligible citizens to receive government services is set to be discarded in the final cobbling of new fiscal measures, according to sources. Instead, the amount would be adjusted against tax at source during return filing, as citizens already pay taxes at source. The government has decided not to impose Tk 2000 as minimum tax on people not having taxable income by “honoring opinion of cross-sections of people.” Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal proposed the new measure while placing the national budget for fiscal year 2023-24 in parliament on June 1, 2023.

The provision has been incorporated into the Income Tax Bill 2023, placed in parliament on June 8. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Finance submitted amendments to the draft Income Tax Bill 2023 on Thursday to the parliament with recommendation for the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to scrap the provision.

Currently, people with annual incomes up to Tk 0.3 million are exempt from payment of income tax. In the proposed budget, the threshold has been increased to Tk 350,000. A report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Finance has placed a set of recommendations, including exempting bank depositors having up to Tk 1.0 million deposits from mandatory submission of tax returns. Instead, the committee has proposed making return submission mandatory for bank depositors having term or fixed deposits in the bank of the said amount.