Govt plans to levy high tax on local ads made with foreigners

The government plans to make a policy aiming at imposing high tax on advertising agencies that will hire foreign artists to perform in local commercials.

“Second-grade foreign artists instead of local ones are being used to make advertisements, which are not rational,” said Information Minister Hasan Mahmud at a meeting in Dhaka on Thursday.

“When BTV was the only channel in the country, many advertisements were aired on BTV. At that time, if a foreign artist was performing in any advertisement, separate taxes were imposed."

“There should be a plausible reason to use foreign artists in local advertisements ignoring the local ones. So, we’ve taken an initiative to introduce a policy to this end. ”

The ministry has written to the relevant people about the issue and the decision will be taken after consulting everyone, according to the information minister.