Income tax search and seizure drives unearth undisclosed income over Rs 785 crore
Undisclosed income of over Rs 335 crore has been unearthed from search and seizure operation carried out by the income tax department across 34 locations in Maharashtra, on a Pune-based group, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement.
The group is engaged in packaging and sale of tobacco and related products besides generation and distribution of power, FMCG and real estate development, the Board said.
“During the course of the search operation, hand written and excel sheets maintained on computer revealed unrecorded cash sale transactions amounting to Rs. 243 crore related to sale of tobacco,” the Board said.
Action on some dealers in tobacco products revealed further unrecorded sale by them amounting to Rs 40 crore, while evidence of real estate transactions amounting to Rs. 18 crore was found related to accepting and paying cash over and above the registration value. Profit on unrecorded transactions of sale of real estate amounting to Rs. 9 crore has been accepted by the assessee.
In a separate operation conducted by income tax officials, undisclosed income over Rs 450 crore was detected from Betul-based soya products manufacturing group.
Search and seizure operation at 22 premises in Betul and Satna in Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai and Solapur in Maharashtra and Kolkata, lead to siezure of unexplained cash of over Rs 8 crore, unexplained foreign currency of various countries amounting to more than Rs. 44 lakh and 9 bank lockers.
“The group has introduced unaccounted income to the tune of Rs. 259 crore by way of introduction of Share capital at huge premium from Kolkata based shell companies,” CBDT said in a separate statement Monday.
From the investigation so far, undisclosed income over Rs 450 crore has been detected, CBDT said.
The group has also introduced undisclosed income of Rs. 90 crore in its books of accounts by way of sale of paper investments in shell companies to another set of shell companies of Kolkata.
“None of the companies was found to be operational at their shown address and the group could not confirm the identity of such paper companies or any of its Directors. Many of these paper companies were found to be struck off by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs,” the Board added.
During the search, it was seen that bogus loss to the tune of Rs. 52 crore has been claimed by the group to suppress their profits, by indulging in intra-group out-of-exchange contract settlement.
Various companies were formed in the name of employees to carry out these transactions, while there was no actual business carried out between them.
Directors of these companies were not aware about any such transactions.
The group has also claimed incorrect Long Term Capital Gains exemption of over Rs 27 crore on sale of shares of a group entity.
Investigations revealed that the purchase of these shares was not genuine as group directors purchased shares of this entity at nominal value from non-existent Kolkata based shell companies.
Various types of evidence including chats among key persons of the group reflects unexplained cash payment and hawala transactions of over Rs. 15 crore.
IT officials added that incriminating evidence in the form of digital media such as laptops, hard drives, pen drives etc have been found and seized.
