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Bangladesh · Story

Bangladesh repealed its wealth tax in 1999 and shelved a new one in June 2026

The Wealth Tax Act of 1963 went in 1999. A surcharge on income tax, paid by just over 11,000 people, took its place. In May 2026 the revenue board wrote a real wealth tax, and the Prime Minister dropped it within weeks.

Bangladesh has no tax on wealth. It has a surcharge on income tax, and the richest pay very little of it. In May 2026 the tax authority wrote a real wealth tax and the Prime Minister dropped it within weeks.[1][3][4] A lakh is 100,000 and a crore is 10 million, so Tk 4 crore is Tk 40 million.

Why Bangladesh needs it

The state is short of money. The National Board of Revenue collected 6.56% of GDP in taxes in the year to June 2025, down from 7.2% a year earlier.[9] By March 2026 it was nearly Tk 100,000 crore behind its target.[2] Only about 4 million of the 11 million people holding a taxpayer number file a return.[8]

Meanwhile the top pulls away. The richest 10% received 41% of all household income in 2022 and the poorest 10% received 1.31%. The Gini coefficient, which runs from 0 to 1, rose from 0.358 in 1973-74 to 0.499 in 2022.[8]

Income is only half the picture. At a 2023 dialogue Ahsan Mansur of the Policy Research Institute told of a plot in Purbachal, Dhaka, that cost Tk 25 lakh ten years earlier and was worth Tk 3 crore: twelve times as much. Mustafizur Rahman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue said returns on assets run higher than GDP growth. Mansur added that heirs who get wealth without any tax widen inequality.[7] Income tax sees a salary. It does not see a plot that grows twelve-fold.

The 1963 Act and what replaced it

Bangladesh introduced a wealth tax in 1963. It repealed it in 1999, citing valuation complexities and worries about double taxation.[1] Since then no law has taxed wealth itself. In 2019 the bdnews24 report on the budget said so in plain words: a wealth tax law did not exist.[6]

What exists is a surcharge, introduced in FY2011-12 "as an alternative to wealth tax". In its first year a 10% surcharge on net wealth above Tk 2 crore raised Tk 65 crore. By 2014-15 it raised Tk 254 crore from 10,931 payers.[5] Today it applies above Tk 4 crore of net wealth and reaches up to 35% of the income tax a person owes.[1][3] Just over 11,000 taxpayers pay it.[1]

A surcharge taxes income, not wealth

The surcharge is a percentage of income tax. A person who reports a small income pays a small surcharge however large the fortune. The NBR gave an example in May 2026: someone with Tk 100 crore in assets and Tk 20 lakh in income tax pays a surcharge of about Tk 7 lakh. A 1% wealth tax on the same assets is Tk 1 crore.[1] The surcharge takes 0.07% of that fortune.

The leak shows in the numbers. Of the 700 wealthiest people on the NBR's Large Taxpayer Unit list, only 182 pay the wealth surcharge.[8] In 2019 Finance Minister Kamal said why in the budget speech: a large number of the wealthy declare much less than they earn. He proposed that anyone with net wealth of Tk 500 million or more pay the higher of 0.1% of net wealth or 30% of income tax payable.[6] The charge would have been tied to the fortune itself.

The 2026 plan and how it died

In May 2026 the NBR drafted a direct tax to replace the surcharge. Nothing below Tk 4 crore of net wealth would pay. Above it the rates were 0.25% on the slice from Tk 4 to 6 crore, 0.5% on the next Tk 5 crore, 0.75% on the next Tk 5 crore and 1% above Tk 16 crore.[1][2] The base was net wealth declared in tax returns, with a system of market values to be built over time.[2][3] The NBR expected about Tk 5,000 crore a year in extra revenue, and more if market valuation worked.[1] Mustafizur Rahman said many countries tax wealth directly, and that the surcharge has no scientific basis.[1]

The plan went far. A meeting chaired by the Prime Minister gave preliminary approval in May, and the NBR chairman said the tax would come in this budget.[4] Then on 3 June the Prime Minister, Tarique Rahman, told officials not to pursue measures that could create controversy and asked for an impact analysis first.[4] The Daily Star reported that officials gave no reason for the wealth tax and hinted at politics.[3]

That is a loss. The bike and rickshaw taxes dropped in the same decision had drawn protests outside the NBR.[3][4] The reports name no protest against the wealth tax, which would have touched nobody under Tk 4 crore. Former NBR member Syed Md Aminul Karim said dropping it was not justified:

A wealth tax could have been a useful tool both for raising revenue and reducing inequality.

Syed Md Aminul Karim, former member of the NBR, The Business Standard, 4 June 2026

Former NBR chairman Nasiruddin Ahmed told the 2023 dialogue that an inheritance tax sent to the Cabinet in 2011 was never approved, and he blamed influential people.[7]

Who backs a revival

The case is carried by Bangladesh's best-known economists and by part of the state. Debapriya Bhattacharya of the Centre for Policy Dialogue called a wealth tax inevitable in 2023, and his colleague Mustafizur Rahman backed the NBR draft in 2026.[1][7] Ahsan H. Mansur argued at the same 2023 dialogue that untaxed inheritance widens inequality.[7] The interim government's Task Force on Economic Strategy Redesign recommended in 2025 a wealth tax on personal and inherited assets.[8] The National Board of Revenue wrote the 2026 draft, and former NBR member Syed Md Aminul Karim defended it after it was dropped.[1][4]

In politics, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal of the Awami League tied a charge to net wealth in 2019.[6] The governing BNP lists a Property and Wealth Tax in the revenue chart of its manifesto of 6 February 2026, with no rate.[11] Jamaat-e-Islami MP Obaidullah Salafi called for a wealth tax on the rich in the budget debate of 14 June 2026.[10]

The objections, answered

Valuation

Valuation was a reason for repealing the 1963 Act.[1] The 2026 draft did not wait for it. It started from the net wealth that the 11,000 surcharge payers already declare, and put market values in a second step.[2][3] Disputes will come. Former NBR member Apurbo Kanti Das warned of litigation over valuation, and Mustafizur Rahman acknowledged valuation disputes.[1] Every tax has disputed bills. The valuation gap is also a cause of the problem: former NBR chairman Muhammad Abdul Majid told the 2023 dialogue that weak valuation of land and houses produces large sums of undisclosed money.[7] A wealth tax gives the state a reason to value them.

Hidden money

Income tax expert Snehasish Barua said a wealth tax would burden those who declare while concealers escape.[4] That is the surcharge as it stands: 182 of 700 big taxpayers.[8] The state also forgave hidden money once. In FY2020-21 over Tk 20,000 crore was legalised at a flat 10% tax with immunity from scrutiny, bringing in a little over Tk 2,000 crore.[4] A 1% annual tax on the same Tk 20,000 crore raises Tk 200 crore a year and matches that payment within ten years. A return that adds a plot every year beside a small income shows the gap.

Flight

Masud Khan wrote in the Daily Star that the rich would move assets offshore or relocate.[12] After Norway raised its tax in 2022, headlines spoke of a flood. The Finance Ministry counted: of 2,864 people with big fortunes, 130 emigrated between 2011 and November 2022. The tax they had paid came to about kr 300 million, while 102 people who moved in over 2012 to 2021 paid about kr 335 million.[13] An exit tax on those who leave with a fortune closes the rest, and a rich resident who stays and pays nothing gives the country nothing.

Double taxation

Khan calls an annual tax on assets double taxation.[12] Bangladesh already taxes holdings every year: land development tax and holding tax are counted among its wealth taxes.[7] A tax on fortunes above Tk 4 crore extends that logic to the people who own the most.

Barua urged officials to study why India dropped its tax.[4] Our India story has the answer: its tax skipped shares and bank deposits. That is a fault of drafting.

What a workable tax needs

A workable tax replaces the surcharge instead of stacking on it, as the NBR draft did.[1] It sets a high threshold, and the Tk 4 crore line keeps ordinary households out.[1] It starts from declared wealth and moves to market values, which the NBR plans to build over time.[2][3] It leans on land and property records: the Lands Minister said in 2023 that digitising land would give owners smart-card certificates.[7] It widens the filing base, since only four million of eleven million taxpayer numbers file.[8] It adds an exit tax, and it publishes the impact analysis the Prime Minister asked for.[4]

CPD put the gain from a wealth and inheritance tax at Tk 6,000 crore a year in 2023, and the NBR put its own draft at Tk 5,000 crore in 2026.[1][7]

Where to look next

See the directory, map and method for Bangladesh, and papers and reports. Other countries with a story: India, Norway, Sweden.

Timeline

  1. 1963 The Wealth Tax Act is passed.
  2. 1999 The Act is repealed.
  3. 2012 A wealth surcharge on income tax starts in FY2011-12, as a replacement for the wealth tax.
  4. 2019 Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal proposes that people with net wealth of Tk 500 million or more pay the higher of 0.1% of net wealth or 30% of income tax payable.
  5. 2023 The Centre for Policy Dialogue says a wealth tax has become inevitable.
  6. 2025 The interim government's Task Force on Economic Strategy Redesign recommends a wealth tax on personal and inherited assets.
  7. 2026 In May the National Board of Revenue drafts a direct tax of 0.25% to 1% on net wealth above Tk 4 crore.
  8. 2026 On 3 June the Prime Minister tells officials to avoid controversial measures. The plan is dropped before the budget.
  9. 2026 On 14 June Jamaat MP Obaidullah Salafi calls for a wealth tax in the budget debate.

Sources

  1. Centre for Policy Dialogue, Direct wealth tax needed for fairer distribution of wealth, Professor Mustafizur Rahman (reposting The Business Standard, 13 May 2026)
  2. The Daily Star, NBR plans wealth tax revival (14 May 2026)
  3. The Daily Star, Govt may drop planned wealth tax, bike and rickshaw AIT (4 June 2026)
  4. The Business Standard, Govt may drop wealth tax, black money indemnity plans (4 June 2026)
  5. The Daily Star, report on the wealth surcharge slabs in the FY2016-17 budget (2 June 2016)
  6. bdnews24, Finance minister proposes 0.1% surcharge for wealth over Tk 500m (13 June 2019)
  7. The Business Standard, report on the Centre for Policy Dialogue dialogue State and scope of property taxation in Bangladesh (24 May 2023)
  8. Prothom Alo, report on the Task Force on Economic Strategy Redesign recommendations (updated 2 February 2025)
  9. The Financial Express, NBR's FY25 tax-to-GDP ratio falls (31 July 2025)
  10. The Business Standard, BNP calls budget pro-people, Jamaat criticises inflation risk and debt dependence (14 June 2026)
  11. Bangladesh Nationalist Party, election manifesto (6 February 2026), revenue chart
  12. Masud Khan, Wealth tax should be approached with caution, The Daily Star (20 May 2026)
  13. Storting, written question Dok. 15:717 (2022-2023) and the Finance Minister's answer of 21 December 2022

The 19 supporters in Bangladesh