INFLUENTIAL city-based builders, who ducked earlier diktats of the State Sales Tax Department for payment of tax, may no longer be able to escape scrutiny during the coming months.
The department had started sending final notices to all the large builders who have not voluntarily registered themselves for the payment of sales tax during the past six months.
“Raids on a number of large builders in the city appear imminent. It’s only a matter of time when department officials start raiding the office premises of builders evading payment of sales tax. Till now, three large builders had been served notices to register immediately”, a senior sales tax department official told HT Lucknow Live.
He said that elsewhere in the state such as Ghaziabad the Department had already conducted a total of four raids in the month of September and October which resulted in detection of sales tax evasion to the tune of Rs 20 crores by some large builders operating in the region.
As per the Supreme Court order the builders are liable to pay applicable taxes on sale of properties. As a result the Department had been asking the builders to register voluntarily for payment of sales tax with the Department. However even after sending repeated reminders during the past six months, many large builders are still avoiding registrations resulting in revenue losses to the state exchequer, the official said.
“We have collected sufficient data on the corporate profile of some large builders in the city from the various development authorities as well as the status of their various ongoing projects to be able to identify tax evaders who have still not registered themselves for payment of sales tax in the city, he said.
{{/usCountry}}“We have collected sufficient data on the corporate profile of some large builders in the city from the various development authorities as well as the status of their various ongoing projects to be able to identify tax evaders who have still not registered themselves for payment of sales tax in the city, he said.
{{/usCountry}}As far as the list of builders from the entire UP region was concerned the Department is still in the process of compiling the list of builders from across the state. The various development authorities approve the maps of projects in various districts which provides the Department with leads on whether the builders in registered with the Sales Tax Department, he added.