Shibli Rubayat Ul Islam, chairman of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC), has reassured investors that their profits or capital gains will remain untaxed.
"I had talks with National Board of Revenue [NBR] officials and they informed me that the capital gains tax would not be imposed on individual investors," he said on Tuesday (30 April) in reaction to media reports regarding the government's plan to levy taxes on capital gains from stock market investments made by individuals.
Implementing the International Monetary Fund's recommendation for imposing a tax on capital gains from listed securities for individual investors, among other suggestions, would not be feasible in the current context of Bangladesh, he told representatives of the Capital Market Journalists Forum at his office Tuesday.
The IMF, for its $4.7 billion loan package for Bangladesh, proposed reducing tax exemptions, including those related to the capital market.
For instance, people receive some tax rebates against their investments in the stock market while incomes from zero-coupon bonds are tax-waived for investors other than banks and non-bank financial institutions. Also, individual investors and mutual funds do not have to pay tax on their capital gains from listed securities.
The BSEC chairman also told journalists that the commission would move away from the practices of taking care of market indices or initial public offerings. Instead, stock exchanges would have to increase their efforts for better outcomes.
"I will try to help accelerate ongoing economic development with the help of the capital market," he said, adding that bond financing is gaining momentum.
Source: The Business Standard