Submitting fake audit reports

A new provision for imposition of Tk 0.1 million as penalty on corporate taxpayers has been proposed in the Finance Bill 2015 for submitting fake audit reports.
The respective taxpayers will also be liable to be punished with imprisonment, according to the Finance Bill placed before the Parliament Thursday.
The new provision was proposed amid the media report that around 70 per cent of the country's companies allegedly submit 'fake' audit reports to the National Board of Revenue (NBR).
Welcoming the punitive measures, accounting professionals, however, opined that the government should make the relevant institutions more active and responsive in order to check such malpractice in the auditing sector.
They also expressed their doubt in proper execution of the provision as such taxpayers mostly remain out of detection of the authorities, especially the NBR.
When contacted, Md Abdus Salam FCA, council member and past president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB), told the FE, "We think that the punitive measures will help to reduce the malpractice of submitting fake audit reports in the country."
He, however, said that it is the duty of the NBR and Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) to identify the taxpayers, who submit fake audit reports.
"They should be more active to detect and punish them, who place fake audit reports, for the sake of greater interest of the country," Mr Salam said, and assured of providing all out support to the NBR in this connection.
"Taking punitive measures is necessary for submission of fake audit reports. At the same time, we should be careful so that such punishments are been logical," Abu Sayed Md. Shaykhul Islam, president of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh (ICMAB), said.
"To resolute the problem in the real sense, the relevant institutions need to be more active and responsive," Mr Islam said.
The bill also prospered to amend the relevant rules to repeal the provision that allowed the professional Chartered Accountants (CAs) and Cost and Management Accountants (CMAs) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales, Scotland, London, Pakistan and India to render advisory services on income tax in Bangladesh.
Welcoming the proposal, Mr Islam further said that the provision unilaterally allowed the foreign accountants though Bangladesh's accountants were not allowed to do job in those countries.
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