The Bangladesh Parliament passed the Finance Bill 2015 on June 29, 2015 with some changes in the tax provisions.
The Finance Minister has increased the minimum amount of income tax for individuals residing in Dhaka and Chittagong. This year the taxpayers in the three city corporation areas located in those two cities have to pay BDT 5000, where it was originally proposed that the amount would be BDT 4000. Taxpayers in other city-corporations would have to pay BDT 4,000 while BDT 3,000 is the amount set for rural areas and district towns.
The tax at-source on export earnings has been lowered to 0.6 percent from the 1 percent originally proposed in the Finance Bill for the fiscal year 2015-16. The nine new banks would pay corporate tax at 40 percent like the other publicly traded companies. The income tax on the poultry industry and fish farming has been restructured. From FY 2015-16, the fisheries’ and poultry income up to BDT 20 lakh would have no tax, and income above BDT 20-30 lakh would have 5 percent tax. Above this limit, the tax rate will be doubled to 10 percent. The Mandatory Tax Payers’ Identification Number (TIN) requirement has been imposed for the guardians of the English medium schools at City Corporation, district Sadar and Pourashava areas. In the Finance Act. 2015, the publicly traded company tax rate has been reduced to 25% from previous rate of 27.5%.
