Former Agriculture Minister and Matia Chowdhury on Thursday strongly criticised the proposal for increasing tax at source on family savings certificate from five per cent to 10 per cent in the proposed national budget for 2019-20 fiscal year.
Taking part in the general discussion on the proposed budget, Matia said, "I would like to talk about a sensitive issue which I can't support. I can't understand why did he [finance minister] increase the tax at source on the family savings certificate from 5 percent to 10 percent?"
Stating that savings certificate is a scheme of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, she said from helpless widow to insolvent women of rural areas depend on earnings from savings certificates, reports UNB.
"Why did he (Finance Minister) interfere in it when he's giving various benefits to businesspeople, increasing the salaries and benefits of government employees and teachers and also giving various facilities to different sectors? I can't understand why've you touched your hands in the savings certificates?"Matia said.
She also said though Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is keeping the scope for whitening the black money, he is not increasing the ceiling on buying savings certificates.
The former minister sought the Prime Minister's special attention in withdrawing the finance minister's proposal for increasing tax at source on the family savings certificates.
Stating that the earning from savings certificate is a legal one, she said the government should not increase tax at source on family savings certificate.
Matia, however, presented various statistics about how the government achieved outstanding successes in different sectors and economic development over the last 10 years.
Meanwhile, Gonoforum's law maker Mukabbir Khan demanded that the government publish a white paper on the alleged widespread corruption and irregularities in the banking sector, bad loan and money laundering.
Participating in the general discussion on the proposed national budget, he also demanded that the government form a special tribunal to try the loan defaulters.
Participating in the discussion, Jatiya Party MP Shameem Haider Patwary urged the finance minister to form a Bank Commission immediately to stop irregularities in the banking sector. "If you [Finance Minister] make delay to form the Bank Commission, it might happen that the commission is there but there's no bank," he added.