Draft Income Tax Act gets Cabinet nod

The Cabinet approved the draft of the Income Tax Act 2023 in principle, which among other things, curbs the discretionary powers of the income tax officer.

The approval came from the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office, said Cabinet Secretary Mahbub Hossain while speaking at a press briefing at the Secretariat.

Explaining the salient points in the draft, he said income tax officers cannot fix income tax as per his/her wish and income tax will be determined according to the formula prescribed by law.

One of the decisions of the Cabinet was to change all the laws of military rule and those that are in English, to bring them up to date. That is why this law has been drafted by the internal resources department, said Mahbub.

Actually, the existing act in English has been converted into Bangla and simplified with some additions. Besides, some complex and ambiguous languages were scrapped.

Besides, the discretionary power of the income tax officer has been limited in the act, which has 348 sections.

A mathematical formula has been introduced in the act to assist taxpayers to determine their taxes and as per the result of it, the taxpayers can pay their taxes, Mahbub added.

The act will help taxpayers to submit their income tax returns online.

Besides, the Cabinet also gave its final approval to the draft of the Agency to Innovate (A2i) Act.

According to the act, an agency will be formed to encourage the innovation of the government in the Information Technology sector and it will help take programmes in establishing knowledge based society and its implementation, he said.

The agency will be formed with a 15-member board of directors and the information and communication technology minister will be the chairman of the board, which will be autonomous, he added.

Besides, the agency will form a policy and will help to create an environment to encourage innovation, he said.

Besides, some 67.78% decisions, taken by the Cabinet from October 2022 to December 2022, have been implemented, said Mahbub.

Ninety decisions have been taken in six Cabinet meetings from October 2022 to December 2022 and 61 decisions were implemented while the implementation of the remaining 29 decisions is now underway.

During this period, the Cabinet approved two policies and 11 deals or protocols.