Black money laundering facility canceled

The government has canceled the provision to whiten undisclosed assets i.e. black money by paying income tax at the rate of 15 percent. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) informed this information through a press release on Monday.

As a result of this order of NBR, the benefit of legalizing black money by paying 15 percent tax on all types of deposits including share market, cash, money in banks, financial schemes and instruments has been cancelled.

In these cases, if black money is to be converted into white, the current applicable tax, which is a maximum of 30 percent, has to be paid and a penalty of 10 percent has to be paid on the tax payable.

Besides, the facility of laundering black money by paying a tax of 15 percent has been abolished, but the existing facility of laundering money by paying a fixed amount of tax on the purchase of flats, houses and land has not been abolished.

Incidentally, after the formation of the new government, on August 28, the advisory council meeting held at the Rashtriya Guest House Yamuna decided to stop the provision of black money laundering.

Earlier, on August 27, in a meeting with the interim government's Finance Advisor Saleh Uddin Ahmed at the NBR headquarters in Agargaon, the NBR officials recommended canceling the black money laundering facility.

Incidentally, in the 2024-25 fiscal year budget approved in July, the recently ousted Awami League government made a provision to legalize black money with a 15 percent tax.

This decision of the then government was severely criticized. Because legitimate taxpayers have to pay an additional surcharge of up to 30 percent income tax.

Bangladesh /FM