ICSB Team urged upon the NBR to bring focus of Corporate Governance in its policy in framing the national budget 21-22 keeping in view the requirement of the economy. ICSB team led by the President of the Institute Muzaffar Ahmed FCS, FCMA attended a Pre-Budget 2021-22 Meeting with Abu Hena Md. RahmatulMuneem, the Chairman of NBR on March 2, 2022.During the meeting, Mr. Azizur Rahman FCS, Senior Vice President of the Institute and Sharif Hassan FCS, Council member facilitated the President and made a detailed presentation on various issues.
During the meeting the President of ICSB offered heartfeltthanks tothe Chairman, NBR for inviting ICSB at the meeting to present suggestions on the up-coming national budget. He also expressed deep gratitude to Muneemfor his due attention towards the various points raised by the Team.
Muzaffar emphasized that the ICSB has been formed through the enactment of the law to promote and facilitate corporate governance in the country. The team opined that the main problem of the corporate sector at present is the governance.The ICSB members have been serving the corporate sector as Company Secretary, CFO, Board Director and in many senior positions and contributing significantly in the economy management. They are implementing budget, providing and assisting the company to pay taxes in order to make the company compliant so that the company could continue its business as agood corporate citizen.
He has put forward some suggestions to NBR for its consideration in framing the upcoming national budget. He emphatically stressed that at this stage of economy NBR is a leading agent of development instead of being just a revenue collecting tool of the government. Therefore, NBR’s policies and procedures should be directed towards economy management to achieve the desired level of economic target.
Muzaffar suggested that the NBR should frame the upcoming budget keeping in view the fact that the economy is now in a transitional point where the government is striving to upgrade the economy with better quality of life, social safety net development, public health, infrastructure development supported by soft infrastructure. The national budget should reflect the above in a holisticapproach. In order to follow the above guideline, he suggested NBR to frame the budget and its policies that strengthenthe related institutes and facilitating them to participate in achieving the Budget goal.
He mentioned that ICSB, ICMAB and ICAB are the government supporting professional institutions imparting education and promoting economic management. Its members are involved directly with the economy and dealing with finance and corporate management. They are in a better position to facilitate the NBR to implement its policies and guidelines. The services of these institutes may be increasingly utilized through policy support, like using the services of members in income tax, VAT collecting agent, Tax practices and giving them some authorities to take the responsibility to support NBR in revenue calculation and collection.He suggested that NBR should recognize these three institutionsas quasi-NBR Institutions with general and specific responsibilities. He categorically mentioned that the ICSB members although allowed to work in the VAT sector, but still they are not recognized for tax practices; and suggested that NBR has nothing to lose if the ICSB members are allowed to practice tax and other related issues. Therefore, the ICSB team drew special attention of NBR towards the above issue.
The ICSB President demanded that ICSB, ICMAB and ICAB members may be given the responsibility of certification of the accuracy of the Income Tax Returns, VAT returns keeping in view that the institutes will take the responsibility to trainthe membersappropriately to support NBR.
