Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW Vol. 5 Num 392 Mon. July 04, 2005       Letters to Editor Erosion of moral values Prof. M. T. Hussain Ibrahimpur Dhaka Provision for making black money white has once again been proposed in the 2005-06 national budget of Bangladesh. The current provision expires on the 30th June 2005. The extended provision clearly implies that we have still enough black money in the country. It is almost impossible to know the exact amount, although some estimates have put the figure in not scores of millions but billions of taka. In the budget the finance minister has not given the figure, but has imposed 7.5% tax for making the figure white. Provided one would get the tax revenue figure out of black money at the rate proposed, one could figure out the black money figure from the tax collected at the rate mentioned. But even so, none could be sure if there would have been no black money left in the country, much less creation and earning by some 'clandestine elements' further or new amount of huge black money. In other words, if the finance minister would have stopped making black money white forthwith after 30th June 2005, nobody could guarantee that the black money generation and accumulation would wither away. Because, the source of black money exists here now just as it existed before; from when it's anyone's guess.