NBR finds 1,300 cars hidden from tax files

A fresh investigation by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has revealed that owners of more than 1,300 luxury cars, including high-end brands like BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and Rolls-Royce, concealed information about the vehicles in their tax files to evade tax.

The tax authority also found that owners of 409 cars did not file any tax returns at all.

All these cars were, however, registered with the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), according to a recent finding of NBR's Central Intelligence Cell (CIC), seen by The Daily Star.

The value of each concealed car, including duties and taxes, ranges from Tk 1 crore to Tk 10 crore, according to CIC officials.

The undeclared cars comprise brands including Toyota, BMW, Mercedes, Jeep, Land Rover, Audi, Range Rover, Porsche, Jaguar, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Cadillac, Maserati, Tesla, Ferrari and Lamborghini.

NBR officials said the list features businesspeople, politicians, government officials and their families, as well as corporate entities.

"These owners did not declare their vehicles in their tax files, effectively concealing income equivalent to the purchase value," Ahsan Habib, director general of the CIC, told The Daily Star last night.

"This indicates that the income may have been earned through illegal means."

He said the CIC has already advised the relevant tax offices to take action against the dodgers as per the tax law.

The CIC estimates that more than Tk 1,000 crore in revenue could be generated from the owners of these vehicles.

So far, the tax intelligence unit has identified 5,489 high-value cars across the country, of which 2,719 were declared. Authorities have decided to reopen 148 of those cases after finding discrepancies in the information provided.

The CIC carried out the probe to identify wealthy individuals dodging taxes by concealing assets in their returns. It gathered data on luxury car ownership from the BRTA covering the past five tax years, up to February 2025.