Bangladesh has inherited a tax system that leans hardest on those least able to bear it. That was decades in the making, and it will not be undone in a single budget. But change it must.
Taxation is not simply about extracting more money from society. It is about defining the relationship between the state and its citizens. Countries do not become middle-income merely because they collect more taxes. They succeed when taxation strengthens the social contract rather than weakens it.
