Rights bodies demand white paper on money laundering
More than $402 million have been evaded by the four major mobile phone multinational companies in Bangladesh namely Grameen Phone (Telenor), Banglalink (Orascom), Robi (Singtel) and Airtel (India) through SIM card replacement. Other Multi National Company like British American Tobacco Company has also been accused of tax evasion of around $250 million through false declaration of raw material import.
12 November 2015
Abu Sazzad :
Leaders of civil society organizations on Wednesday demanded tax transparency of multinational companies with a view to generating more revenue for the betterment of country's economy.
More than 20 rights based civil society organizations, including farmers and labour organizations, led by EquityBD organized a human chain in this connection in front of the National Press Club in the city on the day.
They have also demanded for publishing of a white paper on illicit financial flow and government's action strategies. The right groups have criticized the government for VAT expansion.
Mosafa Kamal Akanda of EquityBD moderated the human chain. Md. Ahsanul Karim and Syed Aminul Hoque of EquityBD, Subol Sarkar of Bhumihin Somity, Prodip Kumar Roy of Online Knowledge Society, M Hafizul Islam of Public Service International, Aminur Rasul Babul of Unnayan Dhara Trust addressed the human chain.
Md. Ahsanul Karim said that UK-based research organization named Tax Justice Network published a report on Financial Secrecy Index (FSI)-2014 on 2-November. The report revealed the role of 92 countries in maintaining financial secrecy and the top 10 countries are Switzerland, Hong Kong, USA, Singapore, Cayman Island-UK, Luxemburg, Lebanon, Germany, Bahrain and Dubai.
He mentioned that the developed countries are paying $135 billion to poor countries as foreign aid in exchange of $1.6 trillion as illicit financial flow from the developing countries.
He added, every year an amount of Tk 200 billion through hundi, Tk 100 to160 billion through over and under invoicing and about Tk 500 billion through money laundering are siphoned off to other countries. The government is, thus, losing huge amount of revenue in every year.
M Hafizul Islam of PSI said that, a total of $18.41 billion had been siphoned off from Bangladesh in 10 years since 2003 through over invoicing, corruption, bribery and tax evasion by a report of Washington-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI). That means, government could earn near about BDT 360 billion as additional revenue and would able to invest it in the development program.
Aminul Hoque said that poor people become crippled for paying higher VAT, debt burden and debt servicing liabilities. Govt. needs to realize this by taking appropriate action and strategies for stopping illicit finance flow to ease the people livelihood along with pro poor resource mobilization technique.
Subal Sarkar stated that a total tax of more than $402 million have been evaded by the four major mobile phone multinational companies in Bangladesh namely Grameen Phone (Telenor), Banglalink (Orascom), Robi (Singtel) and Airtel (India) through SIM card replacement. Other Multi National Company like British American Tobacco Company has also been accused of tax evasion of around $250 million through false declaration of raw material import.
Aminur Rasul Babul mentioned that for Bangladesh, it is not impossible to get the information on money laundering, after an agreement signed on July-2013 with the International Agency "Augment Group" to protect money laundering and terrorist financing where other 147 countries are included. For that, Bangladesh will have to sign with Switzerland for information exchange regarding tax or money laundering.
Leaders of civil society organizations on Wednesday demanded tax transparency of multinational companies with a view to generating more revenue for the betterment of country's economy.
More than 20 rights based civil society organizations, including farmers and labour organizations, led by EquityBD organized a human chain in this connection in front of the National Press Club in the city on the day.
They have also demanded for publishing of a white paper on illicit financial flow and government's action strategies. The right groups have criticized the government for VAT expansion.
Mosafa Kamal Akanda of EquityBD moderated the human chain. Md. Ahsanul Karim and Syed Aminul Hoque of EquityBD, Subol Sarkar of Bhumihin Somity, Prodip Kumar Roy of Online Knowledge Society, M Hafizul Islam of Public Service International, Aminur Rasul Babul of Unnayan Dhara Trust addressed the human chain.
Md. Ahsanul Karim said that UK-based research organization named Tax Justice Network published a report on Financial Secrecy Index (FSI)-2014 on 2-November. The report revealed the role of 92 countries in maintaining financial secrecy and the top 10 countries are Switzerland, Hong Kong, USA, Singapore, Cayman Island-UK, Luxemburg, Lebanon, Germany, Bahrain and Dubai.
He mentioned that the developed countries are paying $135 billion to poor countries as foreign aid in exchange of $1.6 trillion as illicit financial flow from the developing countries.
He added, every year an amount of Tk 200 billion through hundi, Tk 100 to160 billion through over and under invoicing and about Tk 500 billion through money laundering are siphoned off to other countries. The government is, thus, losing huge amount of revenue in every year.
M Hafizul Islam of PSI said that, a total of $18.41 billion had been siphoned off from Bangladesh in 10 years since 2003 through over invoicing, corruption, bribery and tax evasion by a report of Washington-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI). That means, government could earn near about BDT 360 billion as additional revenue and would able to invest it in the development program.
Aminul Hoque said that poor people become crippled for paying higher VAT, debt burden and debt servicing liabilities. Govt. needs to realize this by taking appropriate action and strategies for stopping illicit finance flow to ease the people livelihood along with pro poor resource mobilization technique.
Subal Sarkar stated that a total tax of more than $402 million have been evaded by the four major mobile phone multinational companies in Bangladesh namely Grameen Phone (Telenor), Banglalink (Orascom), Robi (Singtel) and Airtel (India) through SIM card replacement. Other Multi National Company like British American Tobacco Company has also been accused of tax evasion of around $250 million through false declaration of raw material import.
Aminur Rasul Babul mentioned that for Bangladesh, it is not impossible to get the information on money laundering, after an agreement signed on July-2013 with the International Agency "Augment Group" to protect money laundering and terrorist financing where other 147 countries are included. For that, Bangladesh will have to sign with Switzerland for information exchange regarding tax or money laundering.
