NBR seeks bank account details of more doctors

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has sought bank account details of several more specialist doctors in a bid to find their suspected tax dodging.

Several tax zones of the revenue board sent letters to banks on Tuesday asking for account information of the physicians who work at different renowned private and public hospitals and clinics mostly in capital Dhaka.

The NBR sought details of all savings instruments, term deposits, fixed deposits, current and savings account transactions, loan accounts and foreign currency holdings, and credit and debit cards transactions of the doctors, their wives and children since July 1, 2008.

The banks have been given five working days to provide the information.

Earlier on Sunday and Monday, the revenue board had asked banks to furnish bank account details of at least 30 leading doctors.

The physicians whose banking details were sought on Tuesday include:

• Prashanta Kumar Chanda of National Hearth Foundation
• Prof Khwaja Nazim Uddin of BIRDEM Hospital
• Prof Md Rafiqul Kabir of Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College in Bogra
• Prof ASMA Raihan of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University’s gastroenterology department
• The BSMMU Hospital’s anaesthesiology department Chairman Prof Md Abdul Hye

The other doctors are Lutfar Rahman, Rashida Begum, Ayub Ansari, AKM Hafizur Rahman, Akhter Namir Mohammad Harunur Rashid, AKM Anwar Ullah and Md Abul Bashar.

NBR officials say they suspect the doctors evaded paying huge amount of income tax by concealing their ‘real income’ information in the statements submitted to the board.

They said they were looking into whether the physicians’ assets were disproportionate to the income declared in tax returns.

Those who came under NBR scanner earlier include:
• Top ophthalmologist and Director General of Health Services Din Mohammed Nurul Haque
• Apollo Hospitals' Shahabuddin Talukdar and SM Jahangir
• Dhaka Medical College and Hospital’s Associate Professor Nishat Begum
• National Heart Disease Institute's Cardiac Surgery Professor Nasir Uddin, gynaecology specialist Professor Naznin Kabir and Professor Neki Akhter
• BIRDEM Hospital's Associate Professor Nirmalendu Bikash Bhowmik and Zafar Ahmed Latif,
• Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital’s neurology Associate Professor Narayan Chandra Kundu and Md Zillur Rahman,
• United Hospital's Cardiac Surgeon Md Zakir Hossain,
• BSMM University's eye specialist Zafar Khaled,
• National Heart Foundation's Professor Fazil-u-Tunnesa, and
• Apollo Hospital's Gulshan Ara.

Bank transactions of Ruksana Hamid, Shirin Akhter, Syed Shamsuddin Ahmed, Zarina Begum, Gholam Nausher Ali, Faizul Alam, Narayan Shankar Das and Sariya Tasnim also came under the revenue board’s scrutiny.