Bangladesh’s tax collection body asks banks to freeze 2nd largest mobile operator’s accounts

DHAKA, Feb. 27 (NsNewsWire) — Bangladesh’s tax collection body, the National Board of Revenue (NBR), has asked all commercial banks to freeze the accounts of the country’s second largest mobile operator Robi, a joint venture of Axiata Group Berhad (Malaysia), Bharti Airtel Limited (India) and NTT DoCoMo Inc. (Japan), reports Xinhua.
NBR asked banks to freeze Robi’s accounts for three working days alleging evasion of nearly 190 million taka (about 2.29 million U.S. dollars) as value added tax (VAT) and supplementary duties.
A letter, issued from the NBR’s Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU), was Monday sent to chief executives of all commercial banks in the country with the instruction to suspend withdrawal and depositing of money from all of the bank accounts of the operator, NRB said in a press release.
“Legal steps against the company will be taken,” said the release.
A Robi spokesman was not immediately available for comment.  Enditem