The BGMEA has made several proposals, including setting corporate taxes and maintaining lower source tax rates. During the pre-budget discussion of the National Board of Revenue in Dhaka on Thursday (17 February), businessmen said that various problems are being created in the bond license with the HS code in the description of raw materials. The Chairman of the National Board of Revenue also assured the businessmen that their proposals will be taken into consideration.
The garments industry is in an unstable situation due to various reasons including COVID-19. Bangladesh is lagging behind the competing countries due to several reasons including falling prices of garments, position of currency against dollar, increase in price of yarn.
Highlighting these issues in the pre-budget talks of 2022-23, the buisnessmen said that for small factories to survive, VAT should be waived against sub-contacts. They also demanded that taxes against export earnings be removed.
BGMEA President Faruque Hassan said, ‘We have tackled the challenges of COVID-19 much better than many other countries and now we are reaping the benefits. Now our exports have increased more compared to the pre-COVID-19 period.’
He said there is scope for further increase of this upward trend. To take advantage of this, challenges including reducing product prices and complying with consumers’ request for different types of products have to be dealt with. So entrepreneurs are under pressure.
He further said that in such a situation, he is requesting to keep the existing source tax at 50%, corporate tax at 12% for common factories and 10% for green factories for another five years.
At that time, the Chairman of the National Board of Revenue said that if everything falls into place, it will be possible to simplify the import-export process.
The NBR Chairman called for enhancing the capacity of businessmen to meet the challenges of a developing country.
