National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem on Friday said taxation is not the reason behind the problems in the country's capital market,
"Tax incentives had long been there for the capital market and that did not help build it," he said in response to journalists' questions at a post-budget press conference in the capital.
The finance minister proposed to slap a tax on individual investors' capital gains of over Tk50 lakh from listed securities when the individual investor-dominated stock market of the country was in a free fall.
Capital market groups have been urging the government to refrain from the move as it was creating panic in the market in an adverse time.
Also, the proposal to practically narrow down the corporate tax gap between the publicly traded and non-listed companies to 500 basis points from 750 basis points would discourage firms from going public, while market stakeholders, regulators were stressing for a widening of the gap.
DSEX, the broad-based index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange, fell by more than 16% this year to close at 5,237 on Thursday.
