At the gold fair, traders have legitimised 12,000kg of gold, which also includes gold from Apon Jewellers.
This is the first time the government gave the opportunity to legitimise gold by paying tax. Under this privilege, Apon Jewellers paid a tax of Tk 141,444,460.
A three-day gold fair was inaugurated at the Hotel Inter-Continental by NBR chairman, Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan on Sunday.
At the event, owner of Apon Jewellers, Guljar Ahmed, handed over the cheque to the chairman.
General-secretary of the Bangladesh Jewellers’ Association, Dilip Agarwal, told Bangla Tribune: “We have the chance to make our gold stocks legitimate and till 30 June, jewellers will be able to legalise their gold and diamonds.”
Agarwal has said that almost 5 thousand people took part in the tax fair.
“The sector will become bigger once more gold is allowed to become legitimate by paying tax.”
In June 2017, the customs impounded 567.54 kg gold from Apon Jewellers, worth Tk 2,591,027,000 thousand.
While gold of Apon Jewellers has been legalised, it’s still at the vault of the Bangladesh Bank, said executive director of the bank, Masum Patwary.
On Mar 28, 2017, two female students of a private university were raped at the birthday party of, Safat Ahmed, son of one of the owners of Apon Jewellers, Dildar Ahmed.
On May 6, the students lodged a case and later, customs detectives carried out a drive at the showrooms of Apon Jewellers’ and impounded 13.5 mounds of gold and 427 grammes of diamonds. Later, they impounded an additional 2 mounds of gold.
On the other hand, Bangladesh Jewellers’ Association called on the NBR to extend the time to legitimise gold. Till Jun 20, Tk 1,000 per bhori of gold, Tk 6,000 for per bhori of diamond and Tk 50 for per bhori of silver need to be paid to legitimise stock.
NBR has said that income from legitimising gold has been Tk 1.4 billion with Tk 1.1 billion in Dhaka, Tk 100 million in Chattogram and Tk 50 million in Khulna.
This may reach Tk 1.5 billion in the remaining three days, gold traders expect.