At a time when small and medium enterprises are going through some challenging times owing to the fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic, all eyes are on the budget for FY 2021-22, waiting to see if the next budget can help mitigate those.
With reference to the same, the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Foundation has termed the proposed budget ‘SME-friendly’.
Addressing a virtual press meet recently, titled ‘Budget 2021-22: SME Sector’s Expectations and Achievements’, Managing Director of SME Foundation, Md. Mafizur Rahman underlined that this year, the budget has become business-friendly, more specifically SME-friendly as the corporate tax rate for non-listed companies has been slashed from 32.5 per cent to 30 per cent while adding that advance tax on raw materials imported by Bangladesh’s industrial entrepreneurs has also been decreased from 4 per cent to 3 per cent even as in some cases, to protect the small and medium enterprises’ interests, duties and taxes on imports of finished products have been increased and went on to underline that women entrepreneurs will get more income tax exemptions as the tax-free income limit for women entrepreneurs has been increased from the present Taka 50 lakh to Taka 70 lakh, all of which he felt would benefit the SME entrepreneurs.
In short, this year’s budget is SME-friendly, reportedly, claimed Md. Mafizur Rahman while underlining that 14 of the 63 proposals made by the SME Foundation, have been accepted and incorporated in the proposed budget.