Fiscal Policy generally refers to the use of TAXATION and government expenditure to regulate the aggregate level of economic activity in a country. Fiscal policy in Bangladesh basically comprises activities, which the country carries out to obtain and use resources to provide services while ensuring optimum efficiency of the economic units. The policy influences the behavior of economic forces through public finance. Major objectives of the fiscal policy of Bangladesh are to ensure macroeconomic stability of the country, promote economic growth, and develop a mechanism for equitable distribution of income. The main tools to achieve these objectives are variation in public revenue, variation in public expenditure, and management of public debt. These are reflected in the budgetary operations of the government, prepared and implemented on year-on-year basis. In the initial years of independence, the government of Bangladesh had to spend a large amount of its resources in reconstruction and rehabilitation work. It had negative public savings and limited private investment. Despite large inflows of FOREIGN AID, the increasingly large financing gap became the main concern of the government. The tax structure was such that any increase in taxes due to built-in consequences of economic growth was virtually not possible. This was because of the fact that despite a moderate growth of the economy, INCOME DISTRIBUTION was skewed, and had been pushing more and more people below the POVERTY line each year. As such, the proportion of POPULATION with taxable surplus went down overtime. More than 80% of the total tax revenue came from indirect taxes, amongst which taxes on imports contributed about 60%. Since most imports were in the government sector and basic need-oriented, it was hardly possible to increase import duty. Despite higher production costs, prices of most public goods could not be
Fiscal Policy generally refers to the use of TAXATION and government expenditure to regulate the aggregate level of economic activity in a country. Fiscal policy in Bangladesh basically comprises activities, which the country carries out to obtain and use resources to provide services while ensuring optimum efficiency of the economic units. The policy influences the behavior of economic forces through public finance. Major objectives of the fiscal policy of Bangladesh are to ensure macroeconomic stability of the country, promote economic growth, and develop a mechanism for equitable distribution of income. The main tools to achieve these objectives are variation in public revenue, variation in public expenditure, and management of public debt. These are reflected in the budgetary operations of the government, prepared and implemented on year-on-year basis. In the initial years of independence, the government of Bangladesh had to spend a large amount of its resources in reconstruction and rehabilitation work. It had negative public savings and limited private investment. Despite large inflows of FOREIGN AID, the increasingly large financing gap became the main concern of the government. The tax structure was such that any increase in taxes due to built-in consequences of economic growth was virtually not possible. This was because of the fact that despite a moderate growth of the economy, INCOME DISTRIBUTION was skewed, and had been pushing more and more people below the POVERTY line each year. As such, the proportion of POPULATION with taxable surplus went down overtime. More than 80% of the total tax revenue came from indirect taxes, amongst which taxes on imports contributed about 60%. Since most imports were in the government sector and basic need-oriented, it was hardly possible to increase import duty. Despite higher production costs, prices of most public goods could not be