‘Document verification system’ to ensure financial discipline
NBR chairman says
The document verification system (DVS) that authenticates audited financial statements will help bring financial discipline in the country, said Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem, chairman of the National Board of Revenue (NBR).
"Due to the absence of automation, there is a lack of transparency in the country's financial sector which ultimately breeds corruption. DVS will definitely help bring financial discipline."
He made the comments at a virtual conference of the members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) on "Document verification system and authenticity of audited financial statements" on Thursday.
Once the system is developed, the level of financial crimes will be reduced, he hoped.
"Some companies prepare two financial statements. One is genuine while the other is prepared with a view to dodging taxes," he added.
There are no legal complexities to make DVS-verified audited reports mandatory, he said.
DVS is an application under which a document verification code (DVC) will be automatically generated by the system after the submission of some specific information by the auditor.
"No changes in laws will be required to make it mandatory except the issuance of an administrative order," said Md Alamgir Hossain, member (tax policy) of the NBR.
"We want to ensure compliance. DVS might be one of the instruments to verify accounts," he said.
Muhammad Farooq, president of the ICAB, said all the companies registered with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) must be audited by CA firms.
"We have found that there is a big mismatch among the data of ICAB, NBR and RJSC in relation to the number of companies audited by practising members, the number of annual returns submitted with RJSC and the number of corporate TIN holders, he said. Md Shabbir Ahmed, director at the Central Intelligence Cell at the NBR; Mohammed Forkan Uddin, vice president of the ICAB, and Md Humayun Kabir, member council and chairman of taxation and corporate laws committee, also spoke.