Cross Talk
More than a grocery store
For the first time in many years nobody irked the businessmen of this country like the National Board of Revenue did, and it seemed that at some point of time it had put ants in their pants. The NBR men sniffed around asking a lot of questions, and the businessmen didn't like it. They got upset for being squeezed within a short time for the juice which was gathered in thirty-six years. Then of course, one can't rule out the possibility of harassment. The tax collectors are famously known for their absence of scruples. Given a yard of authority, they can go a mile on arrogance.
A little bird must have told the government that the businessmen were mad with NBR, and that they were also not happy with the overall situation. Imports diminished, investments crumbled, prices spiraled and the obvious happened. The hands which turned the wheel of economy went limp, and the picture looked gloomy. Good thing that the government took cognisance of their discomfort and the head of the caretaker government and the army chief cordially sat down with the businessmen and tried to put their minds at ease.
Ever since then I have been thinking. Yes, some businessmen may have got a little unaccounted money. Yes, they may not have paid taxes on all their incomes. So what? Does dodging taxes make one guilty? Honestly, income tax is a modern invention whereby government taxes the citizens so that it can pay for its expenses. It isn't ordained by God, neither is it written in the scriptures. No prophet has preached that one will burn in hell if one doesn't pay one's taxes. It may be obscene not to pay taxes; nevertheless it's not a sin.
Besides, the businessmen have also got a valid point. If the government squanders taxpayer money and politicians line their pockets, then whose mother has raised the fools who want to clear their taxes? And that has been pretty much the story for thirty-six years. Bangladesh has been a land of opportunity where nothing was wrong so long as people made money.
Our biggest tragedy is that the hands that feed our mouths are also the same hands which threaten to strangle us. In other words, people who create jobs for us also destroy lives. They put poison in our food, plunder the banks, cheat on taxes, manipulate politics, and gamble on the future of this country.
But nothing can be done about it since we are caught in a dilemma. We are damned with the businessmen, and we are also damned without them, because our lives are so much at the mercy of their economic play. And this is what worries me more than those unpaid taxes. In fact, NBR was going after the effect, not the cause. It was being penny wise and pound foolish in the literal sense.
Now I am not talking about all the businessmen here, but the predominant mindset which makes each and every one of us think like a businessman. Look at the politicians and all their children who are either behind bars or fugitives of law. They have all minted money, and they all went into business.
And nothing is wrong with business as a profession. It's business as an obsession that bothers me, business which makes everything right even when everything is wrong. Thousands of years ago Greek philosopher Cicero had warned against this obsession: "What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage." Then he had concluded that the mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.
It was this act of believing, which dominated the scene when disgruntled businessmen pitched battle against NBR and forced the government to relent on them. It has been evident that many of these businessmen were less than ethical, and tax evasion was only one of their many faults. Once again they proved that the same rule that applies to the family also applies to the state. He who earns the money gets to runs the show.
So when the finance adviser said last Wednesday that he didn't understand why the businessmen shouldn't have confidence in the government, he missed the point. It was not so much about the taxes and harassments as it was about the loss of freedom. The businessmen don't like to be told that what is advantageous to them is morally wrong.
As a matter of fact, the business sense of things has ruined us all, because it is this sense which has percolated through all layers of life mixing our senses and sensibilities into one jumbled state of confusion. If the businessmen are refusing to be screened for taxes, if they are dispirited because of the their discomfort and if they are stepping back to watch the country slide into an economic downturn, it is their quiet showdown that sooner or later the country was going to fall on its knees and come to beg them.
Not too much to call it blackmail! The businessmen are trying to blackmail the country because they hold the key to its economic prosperity, because they know it's more important for us to create jobs than build character. They also know that cash is more powerful than conscience and money can buy anything.
What the businessmen are asking for is an exception for them, and they have made it clear that if it can't be their way, then it has to be the highway. And right or wrong, our excessive reliance on business as the wheel of economy has distorted the game, making business indispensable for the country while the country should have been indispensable for business.
There is more to a country than return on investment. It's not all about buying and selling. The country is more than a grocery store in case we forgot the difference. Ahem!
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.
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