Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed on Monday slammed a section of economists for their reluctance to acknowledge positive developments in the country's economy and urged them to adopt a more insightful perspective.
He said, "There are some junior economists, they do not see anything at all, I know them all very well, I have been teaching since 1970, and all of them are my students. If you want to see, you need to have eyes, inner eyes."
The adviser was speaking at a seminar on activities of income tax, VAT and Customs in the 2025-26 budget and inauguration of the e-return submission for the 2025-26 fiscal year, organised by National Board of Revenue (NBR) at its headquarters with its Chairman Abdur Rahman Khan in the chair.
He asked the young economists of the country to change their attitude and recognise good things. "It needs an attitude, if we do not want to see, then we will not see anything," he said.
The adviser also admitted that there are many mistakes of this government, but if anyone encourages the good things it brings in a positive move for all concerns. "This is not right that you will tell anything mixing your imaginations. Whatever, we have independence (to say anything), they will continue to say."
The finance adviser urged the mass media to focus on the positive side of the government in a bigger way. "Let's see the mistakes less, always try to see the glass is half-full rather than half-empty," he said.
Regarding the e-return of the income tax issue, he highly lauded the NBR for this great job. "NBR is the centre point of the revenue, trade and commerce, it is not only to collect revenues, but also facilitate the trade and commerce of the country," he said.
He mentioned that time has come to ensure the transparency and accountability of everything.
The adviser, who was the central bank governor during the BNP-Jamaat regime, said whatever the law enacted by the government, it might be deviated due to the men behind who will implement it.
"Those people might have anger or affection on anything, this has to be averted," he asked the NBR officials.
Salehuddin appreciated the NBR officials for their rigorous tasks to gather revenue for the country saying that everyone lauded NBR, even the chief adviser.
Meanwhile, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has made online submission of income tax returns mandatory for all individual taxpayers across the country, except for senior citizens aged 65 years or above, physically incapable or taxpayers with special need subject to submission of certificates, Bangladeshi taxpayers residing abroad and legal representatives of deceased taxpayers.
According to the NBR, from August 4, 2025, all individual taxpayers will be able to submit their returns for the 2025-26 tax year online through the NBR's e-return platform. (www.etaxnbr.gov.bd).
Comments