Unlike previous fiscals, there will be no opportunity to whiten black money in the upcoming fiscal year.

 

Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Sunday reiterated this with tough stand against allowing undisclosed income to invest in any sector without being questioned.

 

News agency UNB quoted him as saying "We will not provide any opportunity to invest undisclosed income in housing sector or elsewhere without asking questions".

 

The finance minister came up with this remarks in response to the realtor’s proposal for allowing people to invest untaxed money for buying flats.

 

A delegation of the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB), led by Vice-President Liaqat Ali, made the proposal during a pre-budget meeting with the finance minister at his secretariat office.

 

At the meeting, the REHAB leaders proposed the government to relax existing rules and regulation to allow undisclosed money in real-estate sector.

 

They advised that the government should allow investment of undisclosed money in the housing sector for 5 to 10 years, which would also help check money laundering and increase revenue collection.

 

Besides the proposal, REHAB also placed a 13-point proposal to the finance minister in the meeting. These included introducing long term re-financing scheme at single digit interest rate, lowering the registration cost to 7.0 percent, reducing the gain tax from 15.0 percent to 4.0 percent and cutting further the income tax rate for realtors.