income tax
On 20 July 2022, the Income Tax Department conducted a comprehensive search and seizure operation targeting two distinct business groups; one involved in real estate and the other in road and railway construction contracts. This operation encompassed over 30 premises in and around Madurai and Chennai.
The search yielded a significant amount of incriminating evidence, including both physical documents and digital data. The investigation into the real estate group uncovered substantial tax evasion activities, whereby the group engaged in large-scale transactions involving unaccounted cash, commonly referred to as "on-money." Notably, they utilized software to maintain a parallel set of books reflecting these unaccounted transactions.
In contrast, the construction contracts group was found to be involved in extensive tax evasion through the use of fraudulent sub-contract expenses. They inflated their purchase costs of various raw materials by relying on self-created vouchers. Their method involved channeling contract amounts to fictitious sub-contractors through banking systems, after which the cash was withdrawn and returned to the assessee group.
The operations revealed unaccounted income exceeding ₹150 crore. Additionally, the search resulted in the seizure of more than ₹14 crore in unaccounted cash, along with gold and jewelry valued at over ₹10 crore.
Further investigations are currently underway to delve deeper into these findings and ascertain the full extent of the tax evasion activities.