As allegation of tax evasion against multinational companies (MC) is swelling up, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has planned to get access to the global database to have information about transaction of multinational companies operating in Bangladesh.
There are several organizations like Standard & Poor, Moody, Fitch and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) that store and sell such information to their clients.
If NBR is able to connect itself to the database of these global organizations, it will get information on the international transactions of multinational companies as per its requirements, said a NBR official.
As a result, it will be possible to find out whether the companies are properly audited, transactions are made in a legal manner or the money are sent abroad to evade taxes by showing higher prices, said the official. The government had enacted the Transfer Pricing Act in 2012 with the aim of collecting the desired amount of tax bringing transparency in international transactions by the multinational companies. The 'Transfer Pricing Cell' was formed under the NBR's customs wing to look after the overall transactions of the multinational companies.
According to a NBR source, the revenue authorities cannot oversee the transactions of multinational companies properly as it does not have access to the international database.
For increasing the capacity of the 'Transfer Pricing Cell' a project styled 'Supporting the Implementation of PFM Reform Strategies Plan' has been taken with financial support from the European Union (EU).
According to the NBR, branch offices of foreign companies send interest, profit, value of any asset or products to their parent companies. They also send the cost of importing goods or services to the parent companies or any other companies abroad. This is known as transfer pricing.
However, there are allegations of tax evasion as well as money laundering against different multinational companies by showing more or less price of goods or giving false\fake information on sending profit money for a long time.
According to NBR sources, transactions of several multinational companies have already been specially audited through the 'Transfer Pricing Cell'.
The transaction data of more than a dozen of companies, with an international turnover of at least Tk 3.0 crore a year, has been scrutinized.
According to the concerned sources, the NBR has initially prepared a list of 921 companies involved in international transactions.
The Transfer Pricing Cell has already sent letter to those companies seeking information in details on the international transactions of these companies.
But at least one-fifth of those organizations did not send information to the Transfer Pricing Cell till now. The NBR has been planning to send another letter to these companies setting a deadline for submission of report on international transactions.
