China’s Huawei Being investigated Over Tax Evasion
Last year the tax department had conducted searches against Chinese mobile communication and handset manufacturing companies namely Xiaomi and Oppo and their linked persons and had detected unaccounted income worth over Rs 6,500 crore due to violation of the Indian tax law and regulations.
Now once again the Income-tax department has conducted searches at number of premises of Chinese telecom company Huawei in the country. It has been done as part of a tax evasion investigation. The raids were launched at the company’s premises in Delhi, Gurugram (Haryana) and Bangalore in Karnataka on Tuesday.
Earlier this week, the Information and Technology ministry had blocked 54 more apps with Chinese links, including Tencent Xriver, Nice Video Baidu, Viva Video Editor, and gaming app Garena Free Fire Illuminate, citing security and privacy concerns.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also conducted searches and frozen assets of Chinese-controlled companies and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) dishing out instant loans through mobile apps in India.
The company said its operations in the country were “firmly compliant” with the law. “We have been informed of the visit of Income Tax team to our office and also of their meeting with some personnel.
However Huawei is confident and says that its operations in India are fully compliant to all laws and regulations. They will approach related Government departments for more information and fully cooperate as per the rules and regulations and follow the right procedure, the company said in a statement.
The government has kept Huawei out of trials for 5G services. However, telecom operators have been allowed to source telecom gear from Huawei and ZTE under their old agreements for maintaining their networks but they will need approval of the government before getting into any new business agreement as per National Security Directive on Telecommunication Sector.
