 "Yunus")
Bangladesh has ordered Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to pay more than $1 million in taxes on a $7-million donation made to three charitable trusts, Agence France Presse reported on Monday citing his lawyer's statement.
The microfinance pioneer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work promoting economic development.
According to the report, 83 year-old Yunus, who has been credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering micro-credit bank, has fallen out with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who claims he is “sucking blood” from the poor.
“The Supreme Court... dismissed our petition,” Yunus’ lawyer Sarder Jinnat Ali informed AFP.
The report also stated that the 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.
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Yunus had donated 767 million taka ($7 million) 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 150 million taka ($1.4 million), 30 million taka of which he has already paid. The report read.
The report further said that Yunus has been credited with helping eradicate extreme poverty in Bangladesh by offering microfinance loans to tens of millions of rural women through Grameen Bank, which he founded in the 1980s.
Bangladesh's anti-graft watchdog last year ordered a wide-ranging probe into firms stating Yunus chairs, and that Hasina has attacked him personally, blaming him for the World Bank pulling out from a bridge project that was mired in corruption allegations.
Hasina said Yunus should be “dipped in a river” for jeopardising its completion when the bridge near Dhaka finally opened in June last year. The report outlined that in March, 40 global figures including former UN chief Ban Ki-moon and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton published a joint letter calling on Bangladesh to stop “unfair” attacks and harassment of Yunus.
