Dhaka, Feb. 11 -- The tax authority has begun investigating discrepancies between reported income and declared assets of candidates of the 13th parliamentary election.

Bank accounts of two candidates have already been frozen, while the tax intelligence team has reopened the past income tax records of another candidate, officials said.

A senior tax department official said most of those under scrutiny are independent candidates who either carelessly or intentionally concealed their actual income in tax returns.

However, he noted that the majority of candidates from major political parties submitted tax documents to the EC that were consistent with records filed with the National Board of Revenue (NBR).

"Still, we had to reopen the tax ...