Bangladesh approves act to cut money laundering

Bangladesh's army-backed interim government approved on Thursday an act to prevent money laundering and terror financing, officials said. Mainly Muslim Bangladesh was hit by a series of Islamist terrorist bomb attacks by two outlawed groups in 2005, which killed at least 30 people and wounded 150.
Six top leaders of the two groups - Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh - were tried and hanged early this year. But police and intelligence reports say Islamists seeking to establish Shariah law in Bangladesh are still active and regrouping under different names.
They received funds from groups in Saudi Arabia and some other Middle-East countries, and some of the militants were trained in Afghanistan. Government officials say effective implementation of the anti-money laundering laws would drastically cut sources of terror funding.
Bangladesh's tax authority on Thursday said they had started a major drive to boost revenue, aiming to add 365,000 new taxpayers in the current fiscal year started July 1. The drive is aimed at boosting domestic resources and reduce dependence on foreign aid for development of economy and infrastructure, a senior official with the National Board of Revenue (NBR) said.
"We have fixed a target of 365,000 new taxpayers in the current fiscal year," said Alamgir Hossain, additional commissioner of taxes, at the National Board of Revenue (NBR). The drive began on Thursday in an effort to achieve the tax revenue target of 438.5 billion taka for the fiscal year.
"Some 100 inspectors have been asked to identify at least 10 new taxpayers per day," Alamgir said, adding "no harassment to the honourable taxpayers will be tolerated." The country's tax authority has vowed tough action against evaders.
Last month, the NBR offered an opportunity to tax dodgers to declare their legal income, by allowing them to pay a 5 percent penalty with the usual tax. The deadline ends this month but officials said the response so far was poor.
The interim government has also started a drive to repatriate laundered money from abroad as part of an ongoing anti-corruption drive. In the first 10 months of last fiscal year, revenue collection totalled 284.88 billion taka, up 9.06 percent from a year earlier, but some 58 billion taka short of target.