Tax Department Error Irks Businesses

“It bothered me,” said U Myint Zaw, managing director of the Mahar Shwe Yadanar Myay Company, after his palm oil importing company was one of 2,500 firms mistakenly named by the government as tax evaders.

The Internal Revenue Department (IRD) on March 6 published a list of 10,670 companies that it said had failed to pay taxes for the 2012-13 fiscal year, which ended in March 2013. But after receiving many complaints from companies wrongly included on the list, a new list was posted that included only 8,220 companies.

Among the wrongly identified tax evaders were AGD Bank, Yoma Bank, the Small & Medium Industrial Development Bank, A-1 Garment Company, Korea Development Bank, the Dagon Group of Companies, Ayeyar Hinthar Trading Company and Mahar Shwe Yadanar Myay Company.

U Myint Zaw said the IRD had quickly responded to the company’s complaint about being wrongly named, but said the department’s mistake could cause misunderstandings among the company’s shareholders and management.