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The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has, apparently, taken recourse to 'ethereal' estimate of black money going white.
A newspaper report quoting NBR sources said Monday about 11,500 individuals and companies had whitened black money during a period of three years, ending in June last. Reportedly, they took advantage of the scope offered by the government for doing the same. The amount thus whitened, according to NBR estimate, was Tk 1.8 billion (1800 crore).
Not many people are likely to find the NBR estimate credible because of the high degree of failure -- deliberate or otherwise -- on the part of its officials to stop extensive tax evasion and paucity of reliable data on black money.
Tracking black money and its destinations is considered one of the most difficult jobs. The NBR, many believe, is yet to be that efficient to accomplish that task.
Tax officials tend to believe that a part of the black money goes to the country's banking system in the form fixed deposits. On that count, inflow of black money formed a part of the growth in fixed deposits by Tk 147.35 billion between December, 2001 and June, 2004. This is just assumption and there is no way of knowing the truth under the existing procedure for opening of fixed deposit accounts with the banks. If the banks do really want to know too many details of the account holders, they might risk losing their clients.
Moreover, none has the faintest idea about the actual size of the black economy--- some says it is worth over Tk. 500 billion while some others puts it at Tk 1750 billion or nearly 50 per cent of the country's GDP. Under such circumstances, all the estimates relating to black money and its movements would be nothing but pure guesswork.
The major sources of black money are bribery, smuggling and under- and over-invoicing. It is generally believed that a part of it is spent on posh living and another sizeable part is transferred abroad. Yet then a substantial amount of black money remains with its owners.
But why are not the owners of black money availing themselves of the opportunities offered by the government to whiten their ill-gotten wealth? This is simple arithmetic. The return on investments in areas that are relevant to the scope given by the government for whitening black money is far less attractive than that of black economy. That is why they prefer recycling of their black money in the world of black economy. Since the prevailing environment is not hostile to the operation of black economy, they have no reasons to come out in the open and expose themselves.
So, there should not be any valid reason for the continuation of the so-called scopes for whitening black money in the next budget.
Now the obvious question comes: what has actually been done so far to discourage the unabated growth of black economy? The root cause behind such growth has been corruption in public places. The private sector corruption is also directly linked to irregularities done by public officials, including the politicians who, in turn, have been occupying the seats of decision-makers from time-to-time, irrespective of identities of their political parties.
The NBR reportedly has opened a central intelligence cell to detect major tax evasions and plug leakage in the tax administration. It also has some major plans in the pipeline to stop tax evasion.
And the central bank has formed an anti-money laundering department under the Money Laundering Prevention Act to stop all sorts of illegal transfer of money abroad.
Yet both the organisations are convinced that nothing tangible would come out without a political will to set things right. Unfortunately, the application of 'political will' to ensure something good for the people and the society has been a rare event in recent times in Bangladesh.
For instance, a proposal to form a high-powered intelligence unit to combat financial crimes was sent to the ministry of finance back in 2002. But the ministry has failed until now to respond to the same. There is no denying that the proposed unit under the prevailing circumstances is unlikely to make any major headway. But the proposal deserves a serious attention from the policymakers.
Then again another organisation -- the anti-corruption commission (ACC) -- that could have played a major role in curbing corruption is in the doldrums. The ACC, which was supposed to create panic among the corrupt officials responsible for the growth of black money, has become a subject of ridicule due its internal squabbles.
The problems that are bedeviling the ACC since its constitution in the later part of 2004 might have been deliberately engineered by those who are opposed to the existence of an independent anti-graft body. The first impression on the part of an individual or an organisation is thought to be the best impression.
On this count alone, the ACC has failed to impress upon millions who had pinned lots of hope on it. The situation may improve at one point of time. But, it seems, the corrupt elements have won the first battle. So there is unlikely to be any respite from corruption and also the predominance of the black economy for the foreseeable future.
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