The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has launched an investigation into five officials of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) over allegations of bribery, tax evasion facilitation, and harassment of taxpayers.
According to an official statement issued on Tuesday, the individuals under scrutiny include Lutful Azim, a current NBR member; Abdur Rashid Mia, Additional Commissioner at the Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU); Mohammad Alamgir Hossain, former Additional Director General of the Central Intelligence Cell (CIC); Mohammad Shihabul Islam, Deputy Tax Commissioner of Tax Zone-16; and Tarek Hasan, Joint Commissioner of NBR.
The ACC suspects that these officials financially benefited from enabling tax and duty evasion by certain individuals and businesses while performing their official duties. The commission is conducting a detailed inquiry to verify these initial findings.
Sources within the ACC indicate that some tax officials have been accepting substantial bribes in exchange for allowing select taxpayers to underreport their tax obligations.
In many cases, officials deliberately reduced assessed tax amounts, resulting in mutual financial gain for both parties.
Such practices are reportedly causing the government to lose a significant amount of revenue annually.
Additional complaints allege that officials who are denied bribes retaliate by filing false tax evasion cases against taxpayers and business owners.
Irregularities have also been reported in tax refund processes, where officials are accused of demanding bribes amounting to nearly half the refund value in order to process returns. These illicit payments are believed to be pocketed personally by the officials involved.
A senior source confirmed that the ACC is also investigating other former and current senior NBR officials for allegedly amassing illegal wealth through corruption, favoritism, and abuse of power in matters related to customs, VAT, and income tax collection.
