Bangladesh has launched a probe into suspected tax evasion by its leading film and television stars after finding a mismatch between their income and tax returns, a senior tax official said Thursday. "We are investigating income and expenditure of the country's top 20 stars," a senior tax official of Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue told AFP on condition of anonymity. "We will check their bank accounts, assets, the schooling of their children, cars, ownership of flats and other sources of incomes to see whether they are evading taxes," he said.
Leading film stars, television soap opera actors and singers were among those being investigated, he said.
Other officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the country's entertainers were leading increasingly luxurious lives.
Some have amassed huge fortunes but appeared to pay little tax, they said.
"Some of them don't even bother to pay taxes at all," said one.
Bangladesh is one of the world's poorest countries with nearly half the population living on less than a dollar a day.
Movie stars, however, can earn as much as 10,000 dollars a film with many appearing in up to a dozen films each year.
The officials' statements came after Bangladeshi newspapers reported that the revenue department was investigating the incomes of entertainers.
Popularly known as Dhaliwood, the Dhaka-based Bengali film industry churns out some 100 low-budget movies a year, while soap operas produced by the country's new private television channels are watched by millions.
Tax evasion is considered a major issue in Bangladesh, a country named last year as the most corrupt in the world by anti-graft watchdog Transparency International.
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