I-T dept finds Rs 150 cr black income after raids on 2 Tamil Nadu groups

The Income Tax Department has detected "unaccounted" income of Rs 150 crore after it recently raided two Tamil Nadu-based business groups engaged in real estate and the other undertaking rail and road construction contracts, the CBDT said on Thursday.

More than Rs 14 crore unaccounted cash, and gold and jewellery worth over Rs 10 crore was seized after the department searched 30 premises of the two groups, which have not been identified, in Madurai and Chennai on July 20.

"In the case of the group involved in real estate business, these (seized) evidences have revealed that the group has indulged in large-scale tax evasion by accepting huge unaccounted cash by way of on-money (cash).

"The group was also using a software to maintain parallel set of books of such unaccounted cash transactions," the CBDT said in a statement.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is the administrative body for the tax department.

In the case of the other group involved in the business of construction contracts, it was found that it was involved in "large-scale tax evasion by debiting bogus sub-contract expenses and inflation of purchases of various raw material through self-made vouchers".

"In the modus operandi followed by the group, the contract amounts were paid to bogus sub-contractors through banking channels, and after withdrawal, the cash was returned to the assessee group," it said.

The statement said the raids on the two groups has revealed unaccounted income exceeding Rs 150 crore.