The Income Tax Department has detected Rs 200 crore in black money in a search and seizure operation carried out on Tuesday on a prominent Kolkata-based group engaged in the manufacturing of cement and real estate business.
The tax officials also seized Rs. 1.30 crore in hard cash and sealed 6 bank lockers of the company in the search action which covered 24 premises spread over Kolkata, Delhi and places in the states of Assam and Meghalaya.
A large amount of incriminating evidence in the form of documents and digital data showing evasion of a huge amount of unaccounted income of the group has been seized. The evidence indicates evasion of taxable income by adopting various malpractices such as, suppression of production, unaccounted and under-invoicing of sales, inflation of cost of purchases using bogus parties and unaccounted expenditure incurred in cash.
Evidence of receipt of on-money in cash on sale of flats, by a group concern, has also been unearthed. Further analysis of seized evidence reveals that many paper companies are run by the group to provide accommodation entries to its flagship concern.
During the search proceedings, incriminating evidence containing transaction of unexplained unsecured loans, bogus commission paid, and unsubstantiated share capital and share premium received through shell companies, has also been found.
Firms of the group were also found to be run in the names of persons/employees who are persons of small means. While these employees were earning meagre salaries, payments running into crores of rupees were being made to such firms. These firms are found to be operating from the factory premise of the group.
Further investigations are in progress in the case and the amount of unaccounted money concealed by the company could go up.
