Ex customs official accuses Punjab cable operator of Rs 2600 crore tax evasion

Chandigarh July 7: A former Customs and Central Excise official, SL Goyal, who retired as Superintendent, on Thursday accused a leading Punjab cable operator of masterminding a Rs 2600 crore tax evasion.

The official claimed the amount of tax evasion could touch Rs 5000 crore mark as Rs 2600 crore evasion was detected way back in 2012.

“The premises of this cable operator were raided by the Central Excise department officials way back in 2012. Rs 2600 Crore tax evasion was detected by AS Dhaliwal, Superintendent Audit. A number of notices were sent to the operator but the tax amount was not realised. The department cannot send notices if the case becomes a time barred after five years,” SL Goyal said.

Goyal said that out of a total of Rs 2600 crore, show cause notices were issued to recover Rs 179 crores from the operator who masterminded a major tax scam by making nearly 6500 sub-cable operators sign a controversial 21 page agreement. As per the agreement, the sub cable operator would collect service tax from the customer and then transfer the same to the principal operator’s account.

The Customs and Central Excise department also failed to recover Rs 179 crore service tax from the operator. The information accessed under RTI revealed that Rs 25 crore was realised but the department had only details of Rs 11 crore. No information about the Rs 14 crore tax was provided.

“Interestingly, Rs 2600 crore service tax, collected from the customers was not paid to the government. Not only this, in 2014 the accused cable operator Fastway even got a service tax credit for the invoices amounting to Rs 36 crore but the the invoices were deleted from its records,” Goyal said.

The former Customs and Central Excise official claimed out of a total of 8000 cable operators in Punjab, 6500 worked with the cable operator and offered branded cable network services to their customers.

News Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in

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