The revenue authority yesterday requested Bangladesh Bank to freeze the current account of Premier Bank on allegation of evasion of Tk 20.10 crore as value-added tax.

Large Taxpayers Unit, VAT, a field office under the National Board of Revenue, issued a letter to the BB governor requesting the central bank to freeze the current account of Premier Bank at the Motijheel branch of BB for three working days.

"We have requested the Bangladesh Bank to unfreeze the account of the Premier Bank as soon as it deposits the VAT to the state exchequer," said a senior NBR official.

The VAT unit's move came based on findings of an inspection team that visited the bank's head office on October 3.

The team collected consolidated accounts of August 2017 and found that the bank showed Tk 22.93 crore as payable VAT deducted from banking service and sources.      

However, the Premier Bank deposited a total of Tk 2.83 crore as VAT with the state exchequer in August 2017. It means that the bank has dodged Tk 20.10 crore by not passing on the VAT collected to the coffer, said the NBR letter to BB Governor.

"The bank management did not give any explanation to us regarding the anomaly," the official said.

VAT officials said they requested the bank management to deposit the due tax to the exchequer after detecting the discrepancy.

"The bank management did not pay heed to our request. So, we have taken action as per the VAT law," said the official expecting that the bank management will pay the indirect tax shortly.

Contacted, a senior official of BB's related department said they are yet to receive any letter from LTU.  "We will take steps according to the letter," he added.

The central bank official said the Premier Bank clients will not face difficulty if the account is frozen.

"Once frozen, the account of the respective bank will become inoperative and the bank will neither be able to deposit nor withdraw money through the account," he added.

Despite repeated attempts, Premier Bank Managing Director Khondker Fazle Rashid could not be reached for comments.

Listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange, Premier Bank posted a 65 percent increase in profit-after-tax of Tk 158 crore for 2016, according to its annual report.

Each Premier Bank share closed yesterday at Tk 16.80, down 1.18 percent.

As of 2016, Premier Bank, which started operation in 1999, has 99 branches.