Debapriya also apprehended that black money may be used to set up new banks and purchase state-owned enterprises ahead of the election. ‘We hope that black money will not be used to purchase Rupali Bank,’ he said.

Debapriya, however, expected the finance minister to withdraw the proposal before the budget is passed in parliament.

He said the tax measures are burdensome for those with fixed income or those with transparent income. ‘People in the high income brackets will pay relatively less than the people in the relatively low income bracket.’

Incremental contribution of value added tax to total revenue is another phenomenon of tax disparity, he added. The finance minister has sacrificed transparency of the budget to shorten his speech, he said.

‘Though prepared within the framework of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, it is difficult to assess the pro-poor intensity of the budget,’ he said. ‘It is also not clear what made the finance minister announce that 54 per cent of budgetary allocation will be spent to finance direct and indirect poverty reduction programmes in the next fiscal.’
The CPD’s brief also questions employment generation measures as claimed in the budget. ‘There is no new budgetary allocation to finance small and medium enterprises and no special support for the handloom industry which is a large rural employer.’

Debapriya said India has allocated Tk 58 crore for handloom and a life insurance scheme for weavers has been initiated with insurance coverage of up to Tk 72,500.
He criticised the increase of the proposed tax rate for non-listed companies to 40 per cent from 37.5 per cent.

‘Although the intention is to encourage companies to go public and be listed in the stock exchange, such high level of tax is likely to hurt small and medium enterprises whose scale is not favourable to go public,’ he explained.

Debapriya said if the low implementation trend continued in the next fiscal, it would again hurt the poor more than the rich.

In a nutshell, he termed the budget a combination of caution, compromise and collusion.

Among others research director of the centre Mustafizur Rahman, dialogue and communication head Fatema Yousuf, and research fellows Uttam Kumar Deb, Fahmida Khatun and Golam Moazzem attended the briefing.