Forgery with taxpayers\\\' pay orders detected

Taxmen have, for the first time, detected forgeries of pay orders by vested quarters, raising concern over the security of taxpayers' money, sources said.
Some taxmen in connivance with bank officials have encashed some pay-orders that the taxpayers submitted with the tax returns to their respective tax offices.
The Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) under the revenue board has identified the forgery of taxpayers' pay-orders recently.
The incident has caused concern for the tax administration over the proper deposit of taxpayers' money to the public exchequer.
In order to investigate the matter, The National Board of Revenue (NBR) recently formed a three-member committee to find out the officials responsible for the irregularities.
The NBR team is scheduled to submit a report with its recommendations and findings by the end of this month.
Initially, CIC has found three pay orders worth Tk 0.6 million missing from the income tax returns, some of which were submitted at the tax fair.
It is certain that some tax officials have encashed the pay orders in their names with the alleged cooperation of bank officials, sources said.
Officials said the pay orders have been encashed in a branch office of a private commercial bank.
Talking to the FE, a senior NBR official said the NBR would take action against the tax officials found responsible on the basis of investigation report.
 "The taxmen will inform the Bangladesh Bank (BB) on the issue formally after completion of the investigation," he said.
It will request the central bank authority to take punitive action against the bank officials for cheating with the taxpayers' money, he added.
Usually, individuals and companies pay taxes through pay orders, issued in favour of the Deputy Commissioner of Taxes (DCTs) of their respective tax zones, and it is considered 'as good as cash.'
They said identification of the responsible persons will take some time as tax returns are usually handled in different stages at the tax offices.
Former NBR income tax member Aminur Rahman expressed surprise at the matter and suggested taxmen to take immediate action for the sake of holding confidence of the taxpayers.
 "There is check-n-balance system of maintenance of tax returns with pay orders. Such an unpleasant incident is frustrating and a new technique of cheating," he added.
He said the system of payment of income tax through pay orders was introduced in 2001 by the then finance minister late Saifur Rahman after he found some fraud in Challan system.
There are some 12 designated banks that can receive pay orders and deposit those to the treasury of BB.
World Bank lead economist Dr Zahid Hussain said such incident may affect taxpayers' compliances and shake their confidence.
He suggested automated system of tax payment to avoid such untoward situation.
Tax officials said there are some 638 tax circles across the country that received some 1.0 million tax returns from the individual taxpayers last year.
They said taxmen would take cautious steps on the basis of findings of the investigation report to avoid such incident in other tax offices.