The High Court (HC) on Tuesday issued a rule seeking an explanation from the authorities concerned as to why actions won’t be taken against National Bureau of Revenue (NBR) chairman for ‘contempt of court’ over an order to realise taxes from social media.

An HC bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil passed the order for not complying with the court order.

Moreover, the court ordered the defendants to respond to the rule within four weeks in this regard.

Supreme Court’s Bar Association Vice President Barrister Mohammad Humayun Kabir accompanied by advocates Bayezid Hossain, Nayeem Sardar and Barrister Solaiman Tushar represented the petitioner during the hearing in the case.

According to the case statement, on November 8 in 2020 the HC directed the NBR to submit an affidavit every six months on all types of transactions including VAT, turnover tax and supplementary duty, VAT and income tax imposed under section 15 from all types of transactions including advertisements, domain sales, license fees on Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Amazon and other internet-based social media.

But till June 11 this year, the NBR submitted no affidavits in this regard.

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On May 19 this year, one ‘Law and Life Foundation Trust’ served a notice to the NBR via email asking to comply with the HC order within 10 days.

As the NBR didn’t respond to the notice within the timeframe.

On June 5, the foundation filed the case bringing the allegation of ‘contempt of court’ against the NBR chairman with the concerned bench of the HC.

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On April 9, 2018, lawyers Humayun Kabir Pallab and Mohammad Kawser, filed a writ petition with the HC seeking its directives to collect tax from social media including Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

The finance secretary, Bangladesh Bank governor, NBR chairman, Google, Facebook and Yahoo were among 12 respondents in the petition.

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