Re: [mukto-mona] An Appeal to the Muslims and the Government of Bangladesh

Re: An Appeal to the Muslims and the Government of Bangladesh

 

http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/muk-forums.htm

 

Mr. Abu Zafor wrote:

 

"You can imagine how much *kotipoti* and *lakhopati* are there in home and abroad to change the fate of our country."

 

Comment: In Islam, there is no provision for payment of income tax, real state tax and wealth tax. It enjoins the Muslims to give alms (khairat), and zakat at a rate that was determined at a time when a man with some gold and few cattle head were considered rich, thus falling within the category of the alms-givers and zakat-payers.

 

Now, Muslims are required to pay income tax and wealth tax to their governments. Asking them to pay zakat on top of the taxes they are already paying is unfair. It will be more unfair to those Muslims, if you are willing to call them as such, who live outside their own countries, for they pay taxes to the government of the countries they live in.

 

As far as Bangladesh is concerned, it is an abode of mostly poor and difficult people. Though its population will today be in excess of 170 million, based on a population of 75 million it had in 1971 vs. the then West Pakistan's population of 55 million, which now stands at 160 million, only about two million Bangladeshis are registered as potential tax payers. Out of this number, only about 500,000 pay taxes and in this number of the tax payers are included the kotipotis and lakhpatis as well as the government employees.

 

Many kotipotis and lakhopatis pay taxes, despite the fact that paying taxes in Bangladesh is a nightmare. You cannot pay tax on your land without paying bribe. You cannot have your income tax returns assessed until you pay bribe to the tax inspector and the assessing officer. So what these kotipotis and lakhopotis do?

 

They declare as little an income as they can manage by paying off the inspectors and the assessing officers. This does not mean that many rich people of Bangladesh do not use other corrupt means to become richer; they do and this we can verify from the warrants of arrest the government has issued recently.

 

But, again, what about the corrupt government officers? Can we expect them to pay taxes on their ill-gotten wealth? No, they won't, as paying their share of taxes will amount to issuing their own warrants of destruction!

 

So, what picture do we get of Bangladesh and its people? Leaving on a small land mass of about 35,000 sq, miles of habitable and cultivable land, only a miniscule number of over 170 million Bangladeshis pay taxes to the government. Rest cannot or do not pay, nor are a vast number of them eligible for payment of, taxes, as they live below the internationally recognized poverty line.

 

Yet, over 60-70,000 Bangladeshis perform hajj each year. Again, almost all rich and middle class people kill on the Eid day millions of animals at home to please Allah and to share their meat among themselves, with only a small portion of it going to the beggars.

 

What this brief analysis of the Bangladesh tax affairs tells us?

 

It tells us that you cannot have both the zakat and income tax systems going hand in hand. You can have only one of them. Will you choose zakat over income tax?

 

Try it and then see where Bangladesh finds itself at! Since zakat is a voluntary system of taxation, I do not think even 500,000 present tax payers will pay it to the government, as all Muslims have lost their Islamic faith after the death of Prophet Muhammad. Why this happened is clarified by this verse of the Quran:

 

24:62: [Only those are Believers who believe in Allah and His Apostle: when they are with him on a matter requiring collective action, they do not depart until they have asked for his leave; those who ask for thy leave are those who believer in Allah and His Apostle; so when they ask for thy leave, for some business or theirs, give leave to those of them whom thou wilt, and ask Allah for their forgiveness: for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful].

 

So, you see why there are no Muslims in the world today? There are no Muslims because they are not giving constant company to the Prophet of Islam, as such, they have forfeited their right to call themselves believers or Muslims!

 

Despite the fact that there are no Muslims anywhere in the world today, almost all the so-called Muslims of Bangladesh dream of performing at least one hajj in their lifetime. This they do, firstly, because they believe that hajj washes out their past sins, whereas Allah's original call to hajj was to help patriarch Abraham survive on its revenue and, secondly, Islam does not teach them to be patriotic, hence the unwillingness of many of them to pay tax to their government, or to help their compatriots out of their abysmal poverty.

 

In such a situation, what the government of Bangladesh can do to partially improve its economic condition is what I have already stated in my previous post. Try this first and then talk about zakat or whatever. In other words, put the jinni in the bottle first and then talk about how you have been able to avoid its curses!

 

Regards,

Mohammad Asghar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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