The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has started investigations against five more officials of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) over allegations of corruption.
Speaking at a media briefing at the commission headquarters on Thursday, Md Akhtarul Islam, deputy director (DD) of the ACC, said that these officials created scope for the big taxpayers to pay less income tax to the government by taking bribes and other facilities from them.
The officials under ACC investigation are Kazi Muhammad Ziauddin, the commissioner of customs excise and VAT of Dhaka East, Md Kamruzzaman, commissioner of Benapole Land Port, Md Mamun Mia, deputy tax commissioner of circle-7 in Rajshahi, Sehela Siddiqua, additional tax commissioner at the Income Tax Intelligence Unit, and Lokman Ahmed, tax inspector of tax zone-2, Dhaka.
According to the ACC, these officials were allegedly involved in taking personal benefits by reducing the amount of tax for large taxpayers.
“As a result, the government was deprived of getting real tax from these taxpayers,” the ACC DD said, adding that sometimes these officials were involved in filing false cases to harass honest taxpayers on their denial of giving bribes to them.
“The officials sometimes claimed bribes from the advanced taxpayers in refunding their additional taxes,” Akhtarul Islam said, adding that the accused officials have already acquired huge illegal money through corruption, which is beyond their known sources of income.
