ICAB, NBR joint move to plug the hole

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) and the National Board of Revenue (NBR) are jointly working to develop a Document Verification System (DVS) to authenticate the audited financial statements.

This would help to find out unscrupulous business organizations who use doctored reports to evade corporate tax.

A delegation of ICAB met the NBR chief on Tuesday to discuss the issue, according to a statement.

In recent times ICAB has also noticed that financial documents/certificates endorsed by third person misrepresenting themselves as Chartered Accountants misleading the regulating authorities and stakeholders.

ICAB President Muhammad Farooq FCA made an introductory remarks at the programme on DVS at NBR conference room where Abu Hena Md. Rahmatul Muneem , Senior Secretary, Internal Resources Division (IRD) & Chairman National Board of Revenue (NBR), members of NBR, other senior officials, ICAB Vice Presidents Sabbir Ahmed FCA, Muhammed Forkan Uddin FCA and Councils Members were present.

A technical presentation on DVS was made by Deputy Director (IT) of ICAB.

Document Verification Code (DVC) is a system generated alphanumeric unique ID for audit reports and the financial statements endorsed by practicing Chartered Accountants.

NBR Chairman Abu Hena Md. Rahmatul Muneem said, DVS will definitely help the NBR officials authenticate the audited financial statements. However, he said, if possible more financial information may be included in the system, so that in greater aspect, the NBR can verify the documents.

'Develop the system as a financial data-base which would be a national asset to be used by different regulators', he added. He advised that ICAB should consider the legal challenges in implementing DVS. ICAB and NBR will work jointly further to make the DVS more effective for the users, he added.

ICAB President Muhammad Farooq FCA said, ICAB has developed the DVS ensuring the data security and confidentiality of the clients. It will be made mandatory for all practicing Chartered Accountants to register with the DVS Portal and to generate DVC, otherwise audit reports and financial statements signed by them would not be accepted by the regulators and other stakeholders, he added.

Replying to a question he said, provision is to be made so that non-compliant of DVS will bepenalized by the Institute.

In presentation part ICAB Vice President Muhammed Forkan Uddin FCA explained the importance of DVS to curb down the malpractice. He said, DVS is the up-gradation of the existing DIAR system. NBR and ICAB will jointly work on the system with a view to remove the anomalies in the financial sector of the country. From the commitment to build a better Bangladesh, ICAB initiated the DVS which would help the revenue authority and other regulators to authenticate the Financial Statements.

This DVC can be viewed by the government agencies, different stakeholders and regulators like Bangladesh Bank, FRC, BSEC, IDRA, etc. covered under MOU or any framework with the Institute.

Additionally, people who want to verify the audit reports through this application would also have access to this application to find some essential financial information.

DVC will be generated by the Practicing Chartered Accountants at the time of signing a document of financial information of organizations. All the documents will carry a unique code generated by the system. During generating the DVC some mandatory Financial Figures of the company must be entered like Turnover, Net Worth, Profit or Loss etc.