Md Showkat Ali Chowdhury, former chairman of Eastern Bank PLC, has sent a clarification regarding a report published in TIMES of Bangladesh on 14 July under the headline “EBL chairman fined Tk307 crore for money laundering.
In the clarification, dated 11 August, Chowdhury said the penalty mentioned in the report was imposed by the Large Taxpayers Unit of the National Board of Revenue under Section 21(1) of the Income Tax Act 2023.
He said the provision concerns a civil penalty for the non-disclosure of assets and does not refer to money laundering. Under the provision, he added, the deputy commissioner of taxes is required to seek an explanation about the source of foreign assets and determine whether it is satisfactory.
Chowdhury said he had not been served with the notice required under Section 21 before the penalty was imposed.
He added that he had appealed to the relevant NBR authority. “In my appeal, I clearly said that I was not served with any show-cause notice, demand notice or assessment order,” he said.
“I declared the funds in my income tax return and paid the applicable tax on them,” Chowdhury wrote in the clarification.
