The Anti-Corruption Commission on Tuesday asked 17 senior officials of the National Board of Revenue to submit their wealth statements after it found evidence of amassing ‘illegal wealth’ by them, officials of the commission said.
Besides, in a major administrative reshuffle at the NBR, the authorities on Tuesday transferred 41 more senior officials to its different offices after transferring 131 others in the previous day.
‘The ACC has decided to issue notices asking the 17 officials to submit their wealth statements to the anti-graft agency as it found that the officials hold assets beyond their known sources of income,’ said ACC director general (prevention) Md Akhter Hossain at a press briefing at the commission’s headquarters in the capital Dhaka.
The 17 officials are NBR members AKM Badiul Alam and Lutful Azim, former Central Intelligence Cell additional director general Mohammad Alamgir Hossain, commissioners Kazi Mohammad Ziauddin, Lokman Ahmed, Kamruzzaman and MM Fazlul Haque, joint commissioner Md Tariq Hassan, additional commissioners Hasan Muhammad Tarek Rikabdar, Sadhan Kumar Kundu, Abdul Rashid Mia, Sehela Siddika and Md Mamun Mia, deputy tax commissioners Mohammad Shihabul Islam and Monalisa Shahrin Sushmita, additional tax commissioner Mirza Ashiq Rana and joint tax commissioner Mohammad Morshed Uddin Khan.
ACC officials said that following reviews of information obtained through inquiries, it was seen that the 17 NBR officials owned assets beyond their known sources of income.
The commission decided to issue notices directing them to submit their wealth statements under section 26(1) of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 2004 and rule 17 of the Anti-Corruption Commission Rules, 2007, ACC DG Akhter Hossain said.
The 17 NBR officials were brought under the ACC scrutiny at the end of June and early July amid tax officials’ protests under the banner of ‘NBR Reforms Unity Council’ against the splitting of the revenue board into two divisions and for the resignation of the NBR chairman.
Some leaders of the protests are among the 17 NBR officials.
Asked whether the probe was linked to the protests, Akhter said that the inquiries were based solely on corruption allegations.
The ACC decision of launching inquiry initially against six officials came on June 28 hours after the interim government in a statement had warned the protesting tax officials of stern action.
Amid the warning, NBR officials withdrew their protest programme on June 29.
The ACC inquiry had started following allegations against the NBR officials that they facilitated large-scale tax evasion by accepting hefty bribes from taxpayers and reduced tax liabilities in exchange for personal gains, causing the government to lose revenue.
There were also allegations that taxpayers were often forced to spend at least half of refund amount in bribes or gifts to secure the refund in the case of submitting excess tax in advance tax, said ACC officials.
NBR officials had been in protest since April 29 against the government’s move to split the revenue board into two divisions.
They formed the NBR Reform Unity Council following the promulgation of the Revenue Policy and Revenue Management Ordinance 2025 by the interim government on May 12.
The ordinance dissolved the revenue board and split it into two divisions under the finance ministry to modernise tax administration and boost revenue collection.
Since the issuance of the ordinance, the NBR officials had held a series of sit-ins, pen-down strikes, and non-cooperation with the NBR chairman in May and June.
At the peak of the movement on June 28 and June 29, all operations at customs houses, value-added tax offices and income tax offices came to a halt due to their ‘complete shutdown’ programme.
In a notification signed by Mosaddek Hossain, first secretary (tax administration) of the NBR, the revenue board reshuffled 41 officials on Tuesday at NBR offices across the country.
All the transferred officials were additional commissioners of taxes, according to the notification.
With this, in the aftermath of the protests, 172 NBR officials transferred, 32 officials were suspended and four senior officials sent into early retirement. Most of those facing disciplinary action were on the frontline of the protest movement.
Officials linked to the recent protests suggested that the reshuffle was carried out as a punitive measure while some other officials said that the transfers began in July and those were done based on the regular procedure of the NBR.
The NBR officials faced disciplinary action allegedly for opposing the Revenue Policy and Management Ordinance, 2025, and obstructing officials of NBR’s customs, VAT and income tax wings from performing their official duties.
The suspension of the officials throughout July spread shock and panic among NBR officials, as they had been in a state of unease since June 29.