Sajjad Zohir

Article published in The Daily Star
On Sunday, May 8, 2011

Responds to moves for reintroducing wealth tax in Bangladesh.

In a recent discourse on wealth/property tax, one proposal suggests of assessing wealth from statements of individual tax-payers on the ground of ease in its administration. The wealth statement, if recorded truthfully and on time, captures the wealth stated at the time of one’s entry into the tax-net, plus the accumulated savings from one’s incomes over the years, which have been reported and have been assessed for income tax purposes. In the common parlor, and ignoring any understatement of expenditure, the most probable operational definition of ‘white money’ would be this reported ‘wealth’ — be it in cash, furniture, gold, apartment, land or any other form — including all forms of investments.