A file photo shows NBR headquarters in Dhaka. Intelligence and investigation cells of field level income tax offices detected tax evasion worth Tk 871 crore in 2,847 cases up to March this year since formation of the cells across the country in early 2017. — New Age photo
Intelligence and investigation cells of field level income tax offices detected tax evasion worth Tk 871 crore in 2,847 cases up to March this year since formation of the cells across the country in early 2017.
A total of 31 income tax zones of the National Board of Revenue established the IICs between December 2016 and January 2017 to intensify vigilance against tax evasion and deal with risky tax files.
The IICs received or found a total of 3,881 allegations of tax evasion from various sources and means, including written, verbal and via telephone and through examining suspected tax files, till March this year, according to NBR data compiled last month.
Of the allegations, they detected tax evasion in 2,847 cases after primary investigation, NBR officials said.
According to NBR data, officials at the tax zones initially selected 2,216 cases for investigation.
They realised Tk 16.16 crore up to March through settling 657 cases of tax evasion.
Detected tax evasion worth Tk 855 crore still remained unrealised as the settlement of the cases remains pending, the data showed.
NBR in December 2016 decided to form the IIC, for the first time, at each zone to strengthen the activities of digging out the tax evasion cases through intelligence and investigation process.
Before that, there was no separate intelligence and investigation cell for the income tax wing though customs and value-added tax wings of the NBR have over the years separate intelligence directorates to deal with such matters.
Central Intelligence Cell of the NBR in generally investigates suspected tax files at broad perspectives along with customs- and VAT-related cases.
According to NBR data, some field offices including zone-4 and zone-7 of Dhaka, zone-4 in Chittagong, Gazipur zone and Khulna zone could not create any demand and recovery against detected tax evasion.
Income tax zone-4 of Dhaka, however, found the highest number of allegations at 1,039 and of which, it primarily found incidences of tax evasion at 1,038 allegations.
Income tax zone-14 of Dhaka detected the highest Tk 669.73 crore from 89 cases followed by tax zone-5, Dhaka with Tk 84.23 crore and tax zone-8, Dhaka with Tk 27 crore.
On the other hand, Dhaka tax zone-10 realised the highest Tk 3.40 crore through resolving some cases followed by Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) with Tk 3.38 crore and Mymensingh tax zone recovered Tk 2.13 crore during the period.
Officials said that each tax zone formed separate team to deal with the cases.
As per direction of NBR, IIC of each zone was supposed to conduct probe into at least four tax evasion-related cases each month, they said.
Source: New Age.
