The Income Tax Act has not been amended for last 10 and half years. The implementation of the Act began in January 1, 2002. Thus, the National Council yesterday, called the attention of the government to rationalise the policies on income taxes.
Lhuentse’s representative, MP Rinzin Rinzin moved the motion for the amendment of the Act. He said imposing tax is one of the measures to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. “In other countries, people who earn high income are taxed 50 to 60 percent. This is because their revenue earned is so high that they can even afford to buy the country. We shouldn’t let this sort of situation crop up in our country,” he said.
The members proposed that there should be an increase in the basic exemption of tax, increase in the highest taxable income slab, and explore the possibility of increasing the current tax rate for the highest taxable income slab.
“We are not imposing tax without reasons to the rich ones. It is not because we don’t like them,” said the Dagana representative, Sonam Dorji, adding that, there should be a measure to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor and that imposing tax is one of the measures.
The House resolved to submit a set of recommendations related to the increase ceiling of Personal Income Tax and educational expenses, revisiting the current practice of levying Business Income Tax, develop policy interventions to provide some form of business tax waivers and to levy same business income tax to all the commercial institutions in Bhutan.
