Bangladesh's tax authority has started knocking on doors at luxury buildings and apartments, especially those rented to diplomats and donor agencies, in a bid to identify tax evaders, a senior official said on Sunday.
"This very special drive has been launched recently after many complaints of tax dodging, especially by those who own luxury houses and earn big money by renting them to diplomats and donor agency people," Mohammad Abdur Razzaque, tax commissioner of the state-run Bangladesh National Board of Revenue (NBR), told Reuters. Tax officials want to check tenancy documents signed between landlords and tenants to check that actual rents match what owners are declaring on their tax returns.
"Some owners just reveal a third of what they receive monthly or annually from their tenants," one official said.
According to officials, nearly 1,200 luxury houses and apartments were being rented to diplomats and donor agencies, mostly in the capital Dhaka and the port city of Chittagong.
Bangladesh's tax revenues in September were 26.03 billion taka ($373 million), running below the monthly average of 34 billion taka needed to reach the full-year target, officials said.
Collection in July to September was 76.81 billion taka, up 8.9 percent from a year earlier but still below the average.
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