Bangladeshi leader Dr Kamal Hussain is in thick soup due to allegations of massive tax evasion after the country’s National Board of Revenue (NBR) concealed annual income. This week, the Bangladesh High Court has deferred the decision on the writ petition filed by Dr Kamal.
Earlier, the Tax Appellate Tribunal held NBR’s demand of Bangladeshi Taka 6.9 crore as valid as payable for the assessment year 2018-19. Hussain had filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging the order of the Tax Appeal Tribunal. The High Court has adjourned the hearing for a week.
The NBR investigation revealed that Kamal Hussain’s law firm showed its annual income as Taka 1.04 crore in 2018-19, evading tax of over Rs 6 crore.
On 30 December 2019, the Deputy Tax Commissioner observed that Dr Kamal’s firm had actually earned TK 20.11 crore, and should have paid TCA 6.09 crore as tax.
Read also | Bangladeshi living illegally in India arrested by ED on charges of bank fraud in his own country
Though a final verdict is awaited, the tax evasion case has become a blot on Gana Forum leader Kamal Hussain, who was projected as an alternative to PM Sheikh Hasina by the Islamist opposition in the 2018 elections.
Dr. Kamal’s firm has disclosed barely five percent of its actual annual income in its tax returns in the year it led an anti-Awami coalition of Islamist parties in national elections.
The bank accounts of his law firm Kamal & Associates have come under scrutiny for these “vague financial transactions”.
His firm disclosed only Taka 1,04,03,495 as his annual earnings, but the bank account shows his actual earnings as Taka 20,11,04,219.
NBR sources say that his firm has to pay Taka 6,09,85,351 as income tax but has actually paid Taka 76,41,548.
The source of this huge income, which was allegedly hidden by Kamal Hussain, is also being probed.
It also remains to be investigated whether some of this undisclosed income came from foreign sources, as his British son-in-law David Bergman launched a campaign with Western support to project Dr Kamal as the PM face of the national opposition. had started.
According to Australia-based columnist Prof Abul Hasnat Milton, Bergman was hired by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami for war crimes trial.
In addition, Bergman’s NetRenews is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, or the USA’s NED, the same country that opposed the war crimes trial when Hillary Clinton called on Sheikh Hasina to halt the trial and had acted as a “conduit” between Tariq and Dr. Lotus
The role of the NED in the regime change operations of US intelligence is well documented by experts such as Jeff Richelson in his magnum opus “The US Intelligence Community”.