NBR Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan. -File Photo

DHAKA, March 17, 2025 (BSS) - National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan said here today that the government had taken a vow not to allow tax exemption in the coming days unless it is inevitably necessary for the interest of the country.  

“We are going out from the tax exemption culture, we have scrapped existing tax exemptions. We will not give any tax exemption afresh and we have taken a vow. We have prepared a policy, we will not give any tax exemption,” he said. 

The NBR chairman said this while addressing a pre-budget meeting at the NBR conference room at the Revenue Building in the city’s Agargaon Area today.

Representatives from different financial institutions like banks, insurance, leasing and merchant banks, Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, Dhaka Stock Exchange, Chittagong Stock Exchange and DSE Brokers’ Association joined the pre-budget meeting to place their budget proposals.

Following repeated tax exemption proposals from various quarters, the NBR chairman said that there is no logical ground to seek tax exemption before establishing any entity.

“The first demand is tax holiday, why? This attitude has to be pulled out from our mentality, otherwise, nothing will happen. Every place there is one demand- tax holiday, we do not want to live with this tax exemption culture anymore,” he said.

The revenue board chief made it clear that in the past there was no development with this tax exemption. “We did not get any positive result wherever we gave such tax exemption,” he added.

He mentioned that the government in the past nurtured the tax exemption culture and currently the country is paying badly for that. 

“For that purpose, the tax GDP ratio is not increasing in the country as one analysis said that Bangladesh was losing the same amount of money what it collects as revenue due to the tax exemptions. We don’t want to bear this bad name anymore,” he said.  

Talking about the present condition of the capital market of Bangladesh, Md Abdur Rahman Khan said that the basic problem is the lack of good governance in the capital market.

He mentioned that no country in the world could be developed without developing the capital market. 

“Bangladesh will not be able to do that since we have ruined this place through various means, still we are depending on the banking sector for the source of money for industrialisation,” he said.

In this connection, he blamed the regulators for the lack of confidence of the investors in the capital market. 

Rahman said that business people used to take loans from the banks for setting up their industries, but they are not interested to go to the capital market to raise funds. 

“Why they are not coming to the capital market, I don’t know that,” he wondered. 

He said that taking money from the banking sector as loan while raising fund from the capital market is “absolutely free money”. 

“If you take money from the bank you have to start repaying just after one year, but you will need five years to set up the industry, to reach the break even point you will need 20 years. Then how you will do your business taking money from banks,” he added.

He said that this culture is going on in Bangladesh which indicates there is something fishy.

On the other hand, he said although many are going to the capital market for fund rising for industrialisation, but after some time it was revealed that there was no industry being set up with that money.

“That means the regulators did not perform their duties properly, whatever the tax benefits we give to the capital market, it will not bring any positive result unless the confidence of the investors returned to this capital market,” he said.