Delta Life Insurance sued for evading Tk25 crore in VAT

The VAT Audit, Intelligence and Investigation Directorate of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) recently filed a case against Delta Life Insurance, a company in the capital's Gulshan area,  finding evidence of them evading value added tax or VAT, resulting in a due sum total of Tk25.34 crore, including principal and interest penalties.

Tipped off about the company's history of evading VAT, the VAT intelligence directorate began investigating Delta Life Insurance and summoned the company's VAT documents from January 2013 to December 2017.

Their investigation revealed the following discrepancies regarding the payment of VAT by the company from January 2013 to December 2017.

In health insurance, the company reported paying VAT of Tk1 crore while the actual payable amount was purportedly Tk9.78 crore.

For VAT on sales, the audit found an unpaid VAT amount of Tk8.68 crore. According to regulations, a 2% monthly interest will be added to the payable amount, creating a total of more than Tk10 crore in interest alone.

As VAT at source, the organisation paid Tk6.34 crore in VAT against a payable amount of Tk9.22 crore. Here the discrepancy is Tk2.95 crore with an additional Tk3.44 crore in interest, calculated at 2% interest per month.

In summation, the probe report discovered that the company has evaded a total of Tk11.76 crore in taxes, which has accrued interest of Tk13.58 crore.

The total payable by the company for VAT purposes now stands at a little more than Tk25 crore.

The investigation further showed that the company had resorted to various forms of fraud and deception to evade VAT, which is a punishable offence under the VAT Act.

The VAT Audit, Intelligence and Investigation Directorate under the NBR has also requested the Customs, Excise, and VAT Commissionerate of Dhaka North to take further action against the company.