The National Board of Revenue has brought the banking business of cooperative societies and cooperative banks under its scrutiny.

The tax administrator also asked its field offices to examine tax records of the cooperatives that are doing banking business.

The move comes after the NBR tightened its rules by withdrawing a tax-exemption benefit for the cooperatives that are engaged in banking business.

The removal of the tax benefit means, a cooperative society, which has banking business, will have to pay 42.5 percent tax like banks from the current fiscal year.

The NBR has already sent a list of cooperative societies and cooperative banks to its 649 field offices.

"We have sent the list so that inspectors can check whether the cooperatives are engaged in banking business," said an NBR official, asking not to be named.

"We will examine whether the cooperatives have taxpayer's identification number and whether they submit returns regularly," said the official.

He said the tax-exemption benefit was withdrawn to discourage the cooperatives from running banking business.

But the tax benefit will remain effective for the cooperatives having no banking business.

There have been allegations of illegal banking by some cooperatives. Early this year, the central bank found proof of illegal banking by Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society, a concern of Destiny.

The NBR also detected tax evasion of more than Tk 100 crore by Destiny.

The tax authority found that Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society violated tax-related laws.

Earlier, the NBR collected the list of national and central cooperative societies and cooperative banks from the Department of Cooperatives.

There are 21 national and 1,107 central cooperatives. The number of primary cooperatives is 1.63 lakh, according to the department's website.

The number of cooperative banks is around 130, according to the Department of Cooperatives.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/4th-Oct-12