Bangladesh orders Nobel laureate to pay $1m in taxes

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s supreme court has ordered Nobel laureate and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus to pay over $1 million in taxes on a $7m donation made to three charitable trusts.

The top court, which upheld a decision by a lower court, ruled on Sunday that Yunus must pay as the law does not support tax exemptions for donations to trusts.

Yunus had donated 767m taka ($7m) to the Professor Muhammad Yunus Trust, the Yunus Family Trust and the Yunus Centre between 2011 and 2014.

The court ordered him to pay a total tax bill of 150m taka ($1.4m). He has already paid 30m taka, reports say.

Bangladesh’s anti-graft watchdog had ordered a comprehensive probe into firms chaired by Yunus.

The laureate is credited for alleviating extreme poverty through his pioneering micro-credit bank. His Grameen Bank scheme, founded in the 1980s, offered microfinance loans to millions of rural women, radically improving their quality of life.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him in 2006, for his work promoting economic development.

However, he recently fell out with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has said he is “sucking blood” from the poor.

Previously, PM Hasina said he was responsible for the World Bank pulling out of a bridge project, which was steeped in corruption allegations.

Meanwhile, global figures including former UN chief Ban Ki-moon and former US state secretary Hillary Clinton wrote a joint letter in March, calling on Bangladesh to stop “unfair” attacks on Yunus.