FY 19 budget to be passed today

The proposed finance bill will be passed in parliament today while the annual budget for the 2018-19 will be passed on Thursday.
At an unscheduled briefing on Tuesday at his secretariat office, finance minister AMA Muhith revealed the decisions.
Answering questions, he ruled out changes in the proposed corporate tax rate and individual tax payers ceiling despite widespread criticisms since the announcement of the budget. 
Proposal of 2.5 per cent cut in corporate tax for bank companies and keeping the income tax threshold unchanged by in the proposed budget have been criticised as ‘boon for affluent and bane for middle class’ by many including the ruling party allies.
During the briefing, Muhith came down heavily
on the ruling party allies coalition politicians saying that their criticism was ‘harsh’ although the proposed budgetary measures were approved by cabinet members of both Awami League and its allies including Jatiya Patry, Workers Party of Bangladesh and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal.
He, however, said he would bring changes to be recommended by the prime minister during the passage of the finance bill on Wednesday.
Officials of the finance ministry confirmed that Muhith would increase duty on cell phone accessories assemblers to 25 per cent after proposing only five per cent duty from previous 45 per cent.
The finance minister likely to clarify the proposal for imposition of value added tax on virtual shopping to clear the confusion that online shopping has been proposed to be taxed.
He would announce slashing five per cent VAT on internet use to 10 per cent from the proposed 15 following urge by telecommunications and ICT minister Mustafa Jabbar and ICT industry leaders.
On June 7, Muhith announced a series of measures while proposing a budget outlay of Tk 4,64,573 crore for 2018-19 financial year in parliament.
The octogenarian finance minister proposed allocation of Tk 15,963 crore for investment in shares and equities with an unspecified amount of the allocated fund would be spent again to bail out scam-hit banks like Sonali, Janata and BASIC in the new fiscal. 
Muhith also announced series of tax measures to collect projected revenue of Tk 3,39,280 crore.
He projected 7.8 per cent growth in gross domestic product and keeping the inflation at 5.6 per cent in FY19.
The overall investment was projected at 33.54 per cent, almost 2 percentage points higher than the present 31.47 per cent ahead of the general elections when private entrepreneurs generally keep off investment.
For expediting the implementation of the annual development programme of Tk 1,73,000, Muhith proposed releasing fund in favour of project directors from July 1, the first day of the financial year.
For financing the Tk 1,25,293 crore budget deficit, the finance minister projected that Tk 54,067 would be taken as loan from the external sources and Tk 71,226 would be taken from domestic sources. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net