Business Today

chasing evaders: outreach or over-reach?

Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, who retired recently, has a cheeky way to describe the tax department’s new-found prowess — it’s ability to put two-and-two together in identifying tax evaders, digitally, electronically and with precision. “All major transactions are being shown in 26AS. How much stocks you purchased, how much mutual funds, which property you purchased or sold, how much is your fixed deposit, how much money have you remitted abroad, so that even by mistake he does not forget to include those transactions in the tax returns,” says Pandey with a straight face. For years, tax authorities operated in silos. Even within the finance minis-try, information sharing was case to case and occasional. Information matching from other transactions such as land, share market and mutual funds and large value expenses…

passenger vehicle sales rise 10.6% in february

Passenger vehicle sales rose 10.6 per cent in February, mainly due to low base of February 2020 when India was transitioning from BS-IV to BS-VI emission norms Two-wheeler sales fell 16.1 per cent while sales of three-wheelers and commercial vehicles declined 49.7 per cent and 29.5 per cent, respectively The best performing segment was tractors with 18.9 per cent growth Source: SIAM TRACTOR 61,351 Units 18.9% Y-o-Y 1.0% M-o-M PASSENGER VEHICLE 2,54,058 Units 10.6% Y-o-Y -9.8% M-o-M COMMERCIAL VEHICLE 59,020 Units -29.5% Y-o-Y 5.7% M-o-M TWO-WHEELER 10,91,288 Units -16.1% Y-o-Y -6.2% M-o-M THREE-WHEELER 33,319 Units -49.7% Y-o-Y 7.3% M-o-M…

indigo’s revival bid

On March 25, 2020, all 259 aircraft of India’s largest airline by market share, IndiGo, were grounded as the government suspended commercial flights — domestic and international — indefinitely due to rising Covid cases. While Indian aviation has seen numerous ups and downs, the March-May 2020 period was the worst-ever. As the market leader and the country’s largest low-cost carrier (LCC), the scale of damage for IndiGo was bigger than the rest. While revenues stopped coming, fixed costs started eating into profits, and in turn, cash reserves. In April, agencies such as CAPA India predicted a loss of $1.5 billion for IndiGo and SpiceJet over the next six months. The impact was so brutal that some brokerages stopped tracking the sector, and IndiGo in particular. “We believe the impact on aviation…

taxman’s data war

Last year, a businessman from Rajkot, Gujarat, declared an income of less than ₹5 lakh in his tax return. However, information collated by the Income Tax (I-T) Department showed he had deposited ₹10 crore — and withdrawn ₹7.5 crore — in cash during the year. The department sent him six notices, a dozen SMS alerts and tried every means to contact him. He remained elusive, forcing it to raid the business premises mentioned in the I-T return. It was a wrong address. I-T officials took the home address from his bank, but he was missing from there. It is now in the process of attaching his bank account and other assets. Far away, in Alwar, Rajasthan, another businessman deposited ₹27 crore cash in his bank account in 2017/18 and ₹22 crore…

steps to catching tax frauds

STEP 1 Collating data from different sources such as AIR/TDS/GST filings and preparing a 360-degree profile of a taxpayer, both individual and corporate STEP 2 Matching data from different sources to look for inconsistencies in income disclosed, turnover reported or any other large shift in patterns STEP 3 Raising a red flag if something fishy is found and informing the field officers to verify the doubts raised by data STEP 4 Sending notices to respective taxpayers, asking them to explain the anomalies STEP 5 a) If the explanation fails to convince, raise tax demand b) If the taxpayer does not respond to the notice, officials track him down and take necessary action (conduct searches and seizures) or/and make arrests (if needed)…

how gst is evaded

FAKE BILLS: Availing input tax credit against fake invoices is a popular means of evading GST for many businesses. Such scams are prospering with the help of chartered accountants and finance professionals SPLITTING OF INVOICES: In some goods/services, GST rates differ based on price range. Many firms break up the product. So, a suit of ₹1,500 is shown separately as a trouser and a shirt of ₹750 each. Accordingly, a lower GST rate is charged ROUND TRIPPING: Transporter uses the same set of documents multiple times to transport consignments. This practice has been checked to some extent due to introduction of e-way bill but it has not been fully eliminated. Pan-India roll-out of FastTag might further check the practice…