Festive buying spree unleashed by lower tax rates pushed gross GST collection to about Rs 1.96 lakh crore in October, registering a 4.6 per cent year-on-year growth -- the slowest rate so far this fiscal.
After issuing notices to hotels across the country for allegedly underpaying goods and services tax (GST) on restaurant services, the revenue department has now widened its scrutiny by seeking information from online travel platforms.
Over the last two years, despite an amnesty scheme, only about Rs 2,500 crore of taxes have been recovered.
'Tax officials view most taxpayers as evaders.' 'The I-T department has a perverse incentive to raise unreasonable demands since the one-fifth tax collected counts towards officials' collection targets,' observes Harsh Roongta.
Nearly 96 per cent of new applicants will benefit from this simplified approval route.
The income tax department has detected alleged tax evasion to the tune of Rs 7 crore in the business transactions of Purti group of companies related to former Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari.
In September last year, India received financial information from over 108 countries regarding foreign accounts and income in the form of interest and dividend earned outside India.
Income Tax department on Monday began searches at the premises of FMCG company Vicco Laboratories in Mumbai, Nagpur and Goa for alleged tax evasion.
India's global requests for obtaining classified tax information, in the face of a number of high-profile tax evasion and scam cases, has also seen a 59 per cent jump -- with a total of 646 requests -- as compared to a total of 386 similar letters during the 2011-12 fiscal.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) said through a post on its official Twitter handle that the premises of its MLC Pushpraj alias Pampi Jain in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, have been raided.
The tax payers' net in India is widening, but also growing is the tax evaders' list. The first half of this fiscal saw 69 more cases of tax evasion with assets worth nearly Rs 217.07 crore (Rs 2.17 billion) seized, compared to Rs 171.57 crore last fiscal.
The Income-Tax (I-T) department has issued around 8,000 notices to salaried employees, self-employed individuals, and companies who made significant donations to charitable trusts. The department suspects potential tax evasion, as records of these donations do not correspond with the income and expenses of those making them. Sandeep Bajaj, managing partner, PSL Advocates & Solicitors, says, "Notices were issued for donations made during the assessment years of 2017-18 through 2020-21."
Kerala Finance Minister K N Balagopal has sought systemic changes in the GST structure, saying every state and consumer has lost because of its basically flawed architecture that has also led to rampant revenue leakage for the states. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime came into force in July 2017. Even though the framework is focused on having a one-nation-one-tax model, quite a few items, including petroleum products and liquor are still out of the GST purview.
The Indian government as respondent in Sanjay Bhandari extradition case has sought permission from the London high court to appeal against the discharge of the defence sector consultant wanted in Delhi to face charges of alleged tax evasion and money laundering.
With the Income Tax department recovering over Rs 225 crore cash during a series of raids on an Odisha-based distillery group on charges of tax evasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday assured the people that the money looted from the public will be returned.
A total of nine premises in the state's capital Ranchi and Jamshedpur are being raided in an operation that started early morning. A security team of the CRPF is assisting the I-T sleuths, the sources said.
Six years after the rollout of the biggest indirect tax reform in India, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month has become a new normal and tax officers are focusing on dealing with fraudsters who are adopting newer modus operandi to game the system, causing loss to the exchequer. To apprehend black sheep, who operate as syndicates and create fake entities on the basis of forged documents to claim input tax credit (ITC), tax officers have started using data analytics, artifical intelligence and machine learning aiming to curb evasion, which was over Rs 3 lakh crore since inception of GST. It was over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23. Thinktank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said the most critical pending GST reform is upgradation of GST Network to prevent fake supplies and fraudulent claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).
Following detailed questioning, journalist Mahesh Langa was arrested by the Crime Branch on Tuesday morning, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ajit Rajian said. "The central GST had found some suspicious transactions in bogus firms floated in the name of Mahesh Langa's wife and father using forged documents. Langa has been arrested for further investigation," he said.
India and the US inked a tax information sharing agreement under FATCA which will enable automatic exchange of financial information.
The I-T probe is related to some trusts run by Khan and his family members, the sources said.
To offer additional support at the low end of the income ranges, the Centre will consider a large-scale jump in exemption rates under the old income-tax regime in the vote on account, or interim Budget, according to a senior official in the know. Those will include an extension of the income tax exemption rates close to Rs 7 lakh and additional measures for women farmers.
The Delhi high court on Friday dismissed petitions by Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra against the income tax department's decision to transfer their assessments to the Central Circle, which is mandated to check tax evasion, instead of an ordinary assessment in a matter related to fugitive arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.
The department has been asked to do away with the norm of taking permission from higher authorities to initiate legal action and begin proceedings against tax evasion.
Tax evaders, BEWARE! The Income Tax department is using AI data analytics to bust fake deductions, flag HRA fraud, and trace digital footprints.
British broadcaster BBC has communicated to the income-tax department that some of its past income, for its operations in India, could have gone unreported during the statutory filing of returns and hence it would like to amend it, official sources said on Wednesday.
India's second largest IT services company Infosys has been slapped with a 'pre-show cause' notice for alleged GST evasion to the tune of about Rs 32,403 crore. In a BSE filing, the Bengaluru headquartered IT firm said Karnataka State GST authorities have issued a pre-show cause notice for payment of GST of Rs 32,403 crores for the period July 2017 to March 2022, towards the expenses incurred by overseas branch offices of Infosys Ltd, and added that the company has responded to the pre-show cause notice.
The Congress party has criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi's handling of GST reforms, calling them inadequate and demanding an apology for the tax imposed on essential items. They argue that the reforms are merely a 'band-aid' solution and that the government should address the states' demand for extended compensation.
The department had launched searches against the 48-year-old actor and the Lucknow-based group of industries involved in infrastructure on September 15 and the CBDT said the action was continuing.
The case dates back to August 2017 when the Income Tax department had carried out searches at multiple premises in Delhi as part of its alleged tax evasion probe against Shivakumar, his alleged business associate and liquor trader Sachin Narayan, another associate Sunil Kumar Sharma who operated a fleet of luxury buses, Karnataka Bhawan (Delhi) employee A Hanumanthaiah and former state government employee and caretaker posted at the Karnataka Bhawan Rajendra N.
Obama to push for expansion of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.
Since arraignment under money laundering is a tougher offence, the CBDT hopes it will also overcome its dismal score sheet to prove satisfactorily to the courts that these cases were genuine ones of tax evasion.
Arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari has opposed the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) plea in a Delhi court seeking to declare him a "fugitive " in connection with a black money case. Bhandari claims his stay in the UK is legal as the London High Court denied his extradition to India. The court's decision was also cited by an English court in April to deny the Indian government's request to extradite another accused in a rice-buying scam. Bhandari's lawyer argued that the ED's application was "vague, misplaced and without jurisdiction " and that the value involved in the case was less than the required Rs 100 crore to declare someone a "fugitive. " The Delhi court has sought the ED's rebuttal to Bhandari's argument by May 3.
Plans for big bang reforms in the GST regime by Diwali, the Putin-Trump summit and S&P upgrading India's sovereign credit rating are likely to instil optimism in the domestic equity market in the week ahead, analysts said. Besides, trends in global markets and the trading activity of foreign investors would also impact domestic investors' sentiment.
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A non-compliance with FATCA entails 30 per cent withholding tax on certain US source payments.
A UK court on Monday ruled that Sanjay Bhandari, an accused middleman and consultant in arms deals, can be extradited to India to face charges of tax evasion and money laundering.
Reducing tax evasion will help government to earn more revenues.
Anti-money laundering efforts will not succeed unless banking secrecy laws are repealed.
Mourinho is unlikely to serve any time in jail under the deal because Spanish law states that a sentence of under two years for a first offence can be served on probation. The Spanish tax agency was not immediately available for comment.
The sentence could go up to three years if the evasion exceeds Rs 50 lakh (5 million).
Dismissing the notion that Mauritius is a tax haven, the island nation's Vice Prime Minister Ramakrishna Sithanen on Tuesday said he has not received any complaints from India about routing investments via his country to evade taxes.
