Corporate Taxation in Bangladesh

Abstract

Corporate tax is one of the members of the direct tax family in any country. It contributes to the national exchequer the major part of direct revenues. The corporate tax is relatively easy to collect as it has a wider legal base than other taxes. In Bangladesh, research related to corporate tax is rare. It is an attempt to focus on corporate taxation in Bangladesh covering the legal aspects, tax incentives related issues, corporate taxation in the South Asian perspective, and the determination of effective tax rate (ETR) and its variability. This is a multifaceted study covering all the above-mentioned issues relating to corporate taxation. In this study, secondary data have been used, and content and document analysis methods have been applied to accomplish this study. But in chapter five, we have used some panel data of 52 DSE listed manufacturing companies to determine the corporate ETR and its variability by testing some hypotheses. Sources of data have been collected mainly from the annual reports of sample companies, annual reports of NBR & other government agencies, Bangladesh economic survey reports, and corporate tax guides by national and international audit firms, tax codes, scholarly articles, etc. Some informal interviews with chartered accountants, academicians, and tax officials have also been conducted to have a deep insight into the corporate taxation in Bangladesh. Objective-wise brief discussion is presented in the following paragraphs. Firstly a review has been done on the legal and organizational framework of corporate taxation in Bangladesh to perceive the legal instruments regarding corporate taxation, administrative processes, and the organizations involved in the corporate tax administration directly and indirectly.----