HC orders NBR to submit GBX Logistics’ income tax file

The High Court has ordered the National Board of Revenue to submit the tax-related documents of freight forwarding company GBX Logistics by Oct 14.

Justice Farah Mahbub and Justice SM Moniruzzaman passed the order on Thursday after hearing a writ petition filed by lawyer Monjur Nahid.

The company stands accused of evading Tk 560 million in tax, according to a report published in the daily Ittefaq, the lawyer mentioned in the petition.

According to the petition, GBX Logistics earned a “substantial amount of revenue” in commissions after handling container shipping businesses.

NBR's Central Intelligence Cell found six accounts of the company in several banks after reviewing the commissions it received from the international container shippers--Orient Express Line and Hapag-Lloyd -- during fiscal 2015-16.

More than Tk 1.61 billion the company earned from commissions were deposited in its accounts, according to the findings.

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Later, the NBR served a notice on Aug 2018 to GBX Logistics. A lawyer named Imamul Hossain Talukder appeared in the NBR as the representative of the taxpayer company and sought a three-month time on Sept 26 in the same year.

But nobody from the company came to the NBR after the three months. Later, the tax administrator did not get any response from the company despite several reminders.

GBX Logistics Managing Director Ahmed Yusuf Walid had expressed his suspicion that some of their business rivals were behind the writ petition.

"Any of our business rivals falsely accuses my company of tax evasion by sending a letter through a lawyer to the NBR," he had told bdnews24.com.

They will go for the next course of action in line with the Appellate Division’s decision on an appeal on the issue, Sonali Biswas, the deputy tax commissioner of NBR's Tax Circle 35 (companies), told bdnews24.com.

Last year, lawyer Motiur Rahman filed a similar petition against GBX Logistics with the HC.