Gift tax : SC to hear Prof Yunus’ appeal on July 23
Staff Reporter :
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Monday adjourned till July 23 the hearing on a leave to appeal petition filed against a High Court verdict that ruled tax imposition on the donated money by Nobel laureate Prof Dr Muhammad Yunus to three trusts on his own name was justified.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique passed the order.
Earlier on June 21 this year, the leave to appeal petition was placed against the HC verdict. The Chamber Court of the Appellate Division on July 9 fixed July 17 for hearing on it. Accordingly the petition came for hearing on Monday.
The High Court on May 31 ruled that tax imposition on the donated money by Nobel laureate Prof Dr Muhammad Yunus to three trusts is justified.
The High Court bench of Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar and Justice Sardar Md Rashed Jahangir delivered the verdict, dismissing three applications filed by Prof Yunus challenging the tax liability on the money donated by him.
The HC bench also said the Deputy Commissioner of Taxes (DCT) of Taxes Zone-6 in Dhaka didn’t commit any illegality by imposing ‘gift tax’ on the donated money.
According to the case documents, Prof Yunus donated Tk 767.33 million to three trusts namely ‘Professor Muhammad Yunus Trust’, ‘Yunus Family Trust’ and ‘Yunus Centre’.
Later the Deputy Commissioner of Taxes (DCT) of Taxes Zone-6 in Dhaka imposed a ‘gift tax’ on the donated money for the assessment years 2011-2012 to 2013-2014 which amount to Tk 153.91 million.
Prof Yunus then filed appeal petitions against the tax imposition on the donated money. However, the Tax Appellate Tribunal upheld the decision of the DCT. Then he moved the High Court.
And the state-owned firm evaded duty worth over Tk 3.66 crore by hiding the real price of the furnace oil in the consignment. In this way, it evaded duties worth over Tk 25.18 crore though 31 bills of entre during the mentioned period, which is completely contradictory to assessment rule-2000.
Under this circumstance, the authority of the Chattagram Customs House sent a show-cause notice to the importer and arranged a hearing in this regard.
After reviewing the statement of the representative of the company and the documents, the customs authority established its claims and issued demand letters to recover the money, but it is yet to be paid, the report said.
An NBR official said, “NBR will take action as per customs law to recover government dues. In that case, any goods owned by the importer may be stopped from being cleared from the seaport, airport or any other customs station until full payment is made.”
“Besides, NBR has also power to freeze the bank accounts of the importer. But, it does not want to go for hard line at the moment,” he said.
Md Abul Meraz, Assistant General Manager of the Meghna Petroleum Ltd, told The New Nation, “We do not import any oil. Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) imports oil. They can say about this.”
