The New Nation - Internet Edition

Dr. M. Azizur Rahman

Businessmen are the major tax payers in any country and also in Bangladesh. Business is the manufacturing, production, trading & purchase and sales of goods and services. Business is for the human life and living for businessmen and for non businessmen in private and public sectors. Each and every human being directly or indirectly depends on the business in private and public sectors.

The Government earns an income or a revenue and form the development budget by taxing general people and the businessmen in particular as they are the major tax payers. Sometimes, the Government borrows domestically and internationally to meet the shortfall of its Annual Development Plan (ADP) and to do the major infrastructural work. All these debts the Government has to repay with the tax-payers' money.

Every transaction, in kind or in cash, between two individuals or parties is based on the 'give and take policy'. The Government imposes and collects tax from people. Tax payers also expect that Government takes care of providing the economic security of human life. Each and every individual of taxable income must pay taxes to the government or must share their business or personal income with government. At the same time, taxpayers are also worried about meeting their basic necessities in life including food, shelter, clothes, education and health for themselves and for their children or for the present and future consumption.

Government is the major employment sector and is giving us a lot including physical infrastructures of roads, bridges, culverts, official and service building, and buildings for hospitals, educational institutions, administration and social and national infrastructural requirement. Government has been providing us education and health facilities, securities of life and living, law and order, and justice and peace forces and helps facilitate the domestic and international trades, and intervene and try to protect the market failure by taking various economic policies. Government provides subsidies to consumers of essential goods and food. It provides housing loan at reasonable interest rates. Present tax revenues earned by the Government is not enough to perform all the activities as mentioned above. We have to develop the tax payment culture to enrich the government for its performance of the social or infrastructural activities.

Governments in most of the countries do or try to serve the job of people's welfare activities in their different capacities with a proceeds of the tax revenue they earn from the people. If we can introduce and develop the culture of tax payment and enrich the Government, we may expect the following from the Government:

Provisions of jobs and job-creation to decrease unemployment or to increase national output and income; pension fund in private and public sector; provident fund in private and public sector; gratuity in private and public sector; providing unemployment allowance from the provision of social security tax; children's rearing and bearing fund since their birth date; children's education fund to cover their school education of 12 years free of cost; ensuring primary health care nation-wide; and increasing the health education by increasing the number of medical colleges, and medical technology institutions both in the public and private sector.

To provide food, clothes and shelter at a reasonable price, the government would be taking the supply-side policies to expand the aggregate supply of goods and services by increasing the productivity in businesses in an innovative manner which will not have much effect on increasing prices. The consumer can buy their goods and services at an affordable cost.

Finally, the mass population can be easily brought under Tax Identification Number (TIN) by opening their tax return file. This will open the door for introducing the tax payment culture in the country, and will enrich the Government to undertake the social welfare activities. The Government can, therefore, furnish its job of two-way transaction between people and the Government to develop its job of income distribution activities to raise the people's standard of living and social welfare and development.

[The writer is Vice-Chancellor of Uttara University]