Tax notice slapped on 350 firms

The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has slapped notices on over 350 companies, including Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), JK Steel, Sun Pharma, the Maharashtra State Electricity Board and Hindustan Zinc for speedy recovery of tax arrears.

The move follows Finance Minister P Chidambaram's directive to taxmen to go all out to recover arrears. The CBEC has posted on its website the names of companies that have been served notices under Section 142 of the Customs Act to recover its dues running into crores.

IOC has negligible arrears that arose out of some problem in its taking advantage of modvat credit.There are over two dozen steel companies, including Triveni Steel, Iron & Steel, Somnath Steel, Yogesh Steel, Unity Steel, Swaminarayam Steel and Trident Steel, in the list.

Most of the companies are based in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam and Kerala.

Of the undisputed recoverable arrears, the tax department has been asked to mop up at least Rs 10,000 crore in both direct and indirect tax arrears this fiscal.

The income-tax department has also been internally directed to utilise Section 281b of the Income Tax Act, which allows temporary attachment of properties for recovering tax dues.