The 2021-22 national budget will be announced next Thursday (June 3). This year’s budget will be presented in the parliament in the midst of the ongoing epidemic like last year.
It is learned that Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is going to present a budget of Tk 6,031 crore for the new financial year. This is Tk 35,061 crore more than the budget of the current financial year. Where the highest importance is given to the health sector, employment and social security.
It is learned that taxes are not being levied on essential food items considering the Corona epidemic. As a result, prices of rice, pulses, sugar, salt, home-made toothpaste, bread, soap, bottled water, fruit juices, spices and processed foods will not go up.
In order to keep the prices of most of the products produced and widely used in the country within reach, huge discounts are being given to the domestic industry. Due to this, the imported motorcycles will be available in the country at a lower price than the imported full motorcycles.
The proposal to increase the supplementary duty on all types of cosmetics from 5 per cent to 10 per cent will increase the prices of these products. Of the four tiers of cigarettes, three tiers have been proposed to increase the price, one tier price remains unchanged. This will increase the price of most cigarettes.
Besides, the prices of all levels of hand-made unfiltered and filtered bidis have been increased. Meanwhile, it has been proposed to increase the supplementary duty on chartered aircraft and helicopter fares. Registration costs for cars and SUVs are also rising, and the VAT on air-conditioned launch services is doubling.
VAT and tax on all types of Covid protection products have been waived in response to Corona. Import, production and trade of Covid-19 test kits and PPE and all types of mask production and trade have been exempted from VAT. As a result, the prices of these products are decreasing.
The price of foreign toys will go up but the price of domestic toys will go down due to tax exemption and imposition of duty on imported similar products.
To encourage domestic production of some products including computers, higher tariffs are being imposed on the import of those products. Due to this the price of this product is increasing.
It has been proposed to increase the supplementary duty from 10 percent to 15 percent as opposed to using mobile SIM. This will increase the cost of talking, texting and using data on mobile phones. On the other hand, due to the duty exemption, the prices of agricultural implements like power reaper, power tiller, operated cider, combined harvester, rotary tiller will come down.