The National Board of Revenue will dig deep into money laundering issues so that those responsible for capital flight can be identified, NBR Chairman Nojibur Rahman said yesterday.
There are many problems, but the authorities will work in their own way without being influenced by anyone and will not back off in the face of the so-called threats, he added.
“As we dig deep, we are seeing many ugly faces,” the chairman told a press briefing at the NBR headquarters in the city yesterday.
In a report released Wednesday, US-based think-tank Global Financial Integrity (GFI) put Bangladesh at number 26 in the ranking of “Illicit Financial Outflows.” Such outflows mainly stem from tax evasion, crime and corruption, with a whopping $5.6bn siphoned out of Bangladesh every year during 2004-2013.
“This information will help us in going forward with the investigation. If there is coordinated management among agencies, we can surely prevent illicit financial outflow,” hoped Nojibur.
He also said people are paying VAT to the traders, but in many cases, the revenue is not being deposited in the government’s accounts. So the money is being laundered through tax evasion. “We are working on it ... We are preparing internal strategies to curb money laundering,” he said.
