- BNP demands rollback of hiked VAT and duties on over 100 products
- Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir calls decision “imprudent and irresponsible”
- Concerned about impact on ordinary people, particularly the poor and middle class
- Urges government to adopt alternative measures and reduce unnecessary development expenditures
- Calls for holding national election to establish accountable administration
- Government increased VAT to cover budget deficit and meet Tax-GDP Ratio condition under IMF loan program
- Printing money has exacerbated high inflation and increased people’s suffering
- Increased taxes will push inflation rate even higher, eroding household savings
- Warns of continued economic downturn, decrease in employment, and increase in unemployment rate
- Cost of fuel will rise, compliance pressure on small businesses will intensify
- Purchasing power of consumers will decrease, livelihood of lower-income people will become unbearable
- Investments will decline, export competitiveness will weaken due to increased taxes
- Government should focus on reducing costs by cutting public spending and reorganizing economic management
- Reconsidering development budget and cutting unnecessary projects could save up to Tk 60,000 crore
- Cutting costs in local government budgets and subsidies could reduce operational expenses
Source: thedailystar.net
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
