E-Paper
Raids on Muthoot find ₹250 cr illicit income: I-T dept
NEW DELHI: The income tax (I-T) department on Wednesday ended its six-day raids on Kerala’s non-banking financial company Muthoot Capital Services, which in 2015-16
NEW DELHI: The income tax (I-T) department on Wednesday ended its six-day raids on Kerala’s non-banking financial company Muthoot Capital Services, which in 2015-16 was the state’s largest taxpayer at ₹524 crore. The raids unearthed undeclared income and assets to the tune of ₹250 crore, government sources said.
The sources said the tax authorities are still going through the data and collating information to figure out the extent of the company’s evasion.
“Over 56 premises of the group in five cities, including Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore and Delhi , have been raided. I-T has also recovered over 25 kgs of gold and a few lockers are yet to be opened (at the time of going to print),” they said.
The Muthoot Pappachan Group has interests in microfinance, hospitality and real estate. The tax department is currently examining the “cash component” in the large portfolio of properties it holds across these businesses, the sources added.
When contacted, the company’s spokesman referred HT to an official statement that had been sent to the stock exchanges.
In the statement, the company has said: “We are reasonably confident that the officials, during the search proceedings, would have found our corporate practices and books satisfactory… At Muthoot Capital Services Ltd, we follow the ethical and legal standards of the highest order in all our activities and have robust institutional measures to monitor as well as implement corporate governance of the highest standards.”
Till now, the disclosure made by the group is the highest from the state of Kerala, and the final amount of illicit money is likely to be revised as the investigations are still on, tax department sources said.
“The activities of the group were under I-T scanner for some time and the tax authorities decided to raid all the 56 premises at one go, with enough proofs, including the residence of the promoters and the company headquarters,” sources told HT.
More than 100 officials from various units of the income tax department participated in the raids and the group is alleged to have unaccounted profit from auctioning forfeited gold, parking of undisclosed cash in various forms of real estate and holding illicit money in form of cash and gold by under reporting of profits from other businesses in its books of accounts.
According to the latest data collated by the income tax department, accessed by HT, ₹155 crore of black money was recovered during April-June 2016 , from ₹50 crore during the same period last year, marking one of the highest recoveries till date. Similarly, jewellery seizures, too, doubled during the three months to ₹35 crore against ₹17 crore a year ago. Sources said pan-India recoveries are bound to increase in the coming months, especially with the government going all out in chasing suspicious transactions by people.
