The National Board of Revenue has found that 18 associate companies of the Hallmark Group did neither submit tax returns nor paid taxes for any fiscal year though the companies have obtained tax identification numbers as business entities, NBR officials said on Monday.
The NBR will serve notice very soon to the companies asking why they did not submit tax returns following the income tax ordinance and why punitive action will not be taken against the companies, the officials said.
The notice will be sent to the companies’ addresses which the revenue board has already collected from its field offices.
Till now, the NBR has found only 18 companies that had taken TIN certificates though the group, according to its managing director Tanvir Mahmud, has at least 70 to 80 companies.
The tax officials said that Hallmark Group’s managing director Tanvir Mahmud himself dodged huge amount of taxes and the NBR officials have started scrutinising his and his family members’ tax files.
Tanvir Mahmud emerging from the office of Anti-Corruption Commission recently told media personnel that he had 20 times worth of wealth of the amount allegedly taken by his company from Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla branch.
Hallmark alone swindled around Tk 2,600 crore, out of Tk 3,606 crore, from Sonali Bank, and that means he has wealth of more than Tk 50,000 crores. But he had paid insignificant amount of less than Tk two crore in taxes, tax officials said.
They said he has concealed information about his wealth including detail information of his companies, cash money and fixed deposits in different banks.
After scrutinising the tax files of Tanvir, the NBR would take action against him including freezing his and his companies’ bank accounts, if any tax evasion is found.
Courtesy of New Age
