Customer will have to pay more for products and service bought from one's mobile phone as the government yesterday introduced a 5 percent value-added tax on those from next fiscal year and also raised the surcharge on handset imports.

It looks like another repeat story. We had a big budget that failed to achieve its targets. Now we are pushing for a bigger one with higher targets. But with the ground reality remaining the same, are we to see a story foretold for the next year?

Interest payments get the fourth highest allocation, which is also higher than the combined allocation for health, social security and welfare in the proposed budget for 2018-19.

Samidul Haque obtained a BBA degree from a private university a year ago.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith presented the FY2018-19 national budget to parliament yesterday. This is a historic event in the sense that it is his tenth consecutive budget that reflects the continuity in fiscal management.

National Budget 2018-19 ....

Shifa Hosne and her husband have been saving up money to buy a small flat in the city, where property price is already way beyond the capacity of service holders with fixed income.

The government plans following in Europe's footsteps to tap digital marketing's popularity, with Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday proposing introducing provisions on taxing earnings of networking tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Youtube.

For the first time in Bangladesh, a finance minister apologised for his inability to create an opportunity to hold elaborate discussions on supplementary budget in parliament.

Chamber and trade body leaders yesterday said the government would struggle to generate higher revenue in the course of implementing the budget in the election year.

The government is continuing to treat banks with kid gloves instead of going tough on them for the rampant financial irregularities and continued poor judgement.

Finance minister AMA Muhith gives an outline of Universal Pension Scheme and hopes that preparatory work for its implementation may start from next year.

Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith today rolled out a Tk 4,64,573 crore national budget for fiscal year 2018-19 setting the GDP growth target at 7.8 percent and outlining a set of plans-strategies to build a prosperous, happy and peaceful country.

Government employees can get loans for the construction of house or purchase of flats anywhere in the country as a policy guideline has already been formulated for providing such loan from the banking system.

BNP strongly criticises the budget Finance Minister AMA Muhith placed in the parliament, saying it is imaginary and aimed to gain popularity ahead of the election.

Citing the government's commitment to ensure a 'Digital Bangladesh', Finance Minister AMA Muhith says that 8,000 km of optical fibre cables have been installed in 1104 union parishads of 114 upazilas in 64 districts.

Government is planning to impose 5 percent value added tax on the ride-sharing services which will make the new kind of transporting system in big cities of the country costlier.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith proposes introduction of new provisions in the tax laws over the taxation of virtual and digital sectors, such as Facebook, Google, Youtube, on their incomes earned in Bangladesh.

The national financial plan sometimes meets the expectations of stock investors and sometimes does the opposite. Here is a graph that shows how Dhaka Stock Exchange experiences in the budget days.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith says, though the country has achieved remarkable successes under his 10 years' tenure, the cherished dream still remains elusive.