Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said yesterday that the proposed hike in duty on gold import should have been made earlier.
“This is a good source of revenue which has been left neglected till recently. Other countries are imposing a Tk5,000-6,000 duty on gold imports, whereas we were charging only Tk150,” he said while addressing a post-budget press briefing in the capital.
Hopefully, people will receive the change positively, he said.
In his budget speech, the minister proposed raising the duty on gold import to Tk3,000 per tola (11.66g) from the existing Tk150, to discourage smuggling.
Hike in handset duty would have less impact Muhith said the hike in the Value Added Tax imposed on the import of mobile phones will not have much impact on users.
“Ten crore people, out of a total of 16 crore, use mobile phones in the country. No other poor country in the world has seen such a large sale of these devices. So the hike in VAT will not have much impact,” he said.
Muhith proposed imposing a 15% VAT on mobile phone imports, as opposed to the existing 10%.
He said this will help grow revenues and will aid the government in managing money for different expenditures.
Speaking about a tax-free income limit, Muhith said: “I wanted to keep it unchanged for a long period like top countries in terms of economy but the prime minister did not agree to it.”
Frequent changes in the income ceiling are not witnessed in other countries like Bangladesh, he said.
The minister has proposed the tax-free income limit be kept unchanged at Tk2.20 lakh in the fiscal year 2014-15.
