Box office income suppressed by ₹300 crore, says I-T Dept.

The Income Tax Department mentioned on Thursday that its search and survey operations on two main movie manufacturing corporations, a number one actress, and two expertise administration corporations in Mumbai, has unearthed a discrepancy in income of ₹300 crore, and manipulations in share transactions with tax implications of ₹350 crore at one of many movie manufacturing homes.

On Wednesday, the Department raided properties linked to filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and actor Taapsee Pannu in Mumbai, in addition to premises linked to a expertise company and Phantom Films, co-founded by Mr. Kashyap, and producers Vikas Bahl and Madhu Mantena.

“Evidence of cash receipts by the leading actress amounting to ₹5 crore has been recovered. Apart from this, non-genuine/bogus expenditure to related concerns by the leading producers/director having tax implication of about ₹20 crore has been detected. Similar findings have been made in the case of the leading actress also,” the Department mentioned in an announcement.

Seven financial institution lockers have been positioned underneath restraint and searches are persevering with in 28 residential and office premises at Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Hyderabad, the assertion mentioned.

“During the search, evidence of huge suppression of income by the leading Film Production house compared to the actual box office collections has been unearthed. The company officials have not been able to explain discrepancy of around ₹300 crore,” it mentioned.

Evidence associated to manipulation and under-valuation of share transactions of the manufacturing home amongst the movie administrators and shareholders, having tax implication of about ₹350 crore, has been discovered and is being additional investigated.

“At the office premises of the two talent management companies, huge amount of digital data has been seized in the form of emails, whatsapp chats, hard disk etc which are under investigation,” the IT division mentioned.

Raids in Tamil Nadu

Separately, search and seizure operations by the Income Tax Department on two teams of civil contractors in southern Tamil Nadu have yielded ₹3 crore in unaccounted money, and led to the detection of unaccounted income of ₹175 crore. Searches and surveys have been performed in 18 premises, primarily in Madurai and Ramnad districts, the Department mentioned.

“Based on intelligence inputs about the existence of cash, which is likely to be distributed for election purposes, searches were mounted on the business groups. The action resulted in the finding of unaccounted cash of ₹3 crore which was seized,” the tax authorities mentioned.

The tax officers additionally discovered that the tax assessee is reserving bogus bills underneath varied heads to cut back earnings to lower than 2% of turnover, although they exceeded 20%. “Similarly, more than 100 sub-contractors were introduced to book expenses to meet illegal payments, and on-money payments for property purchases. These subcontractors introduced, had filed returns of income from the same IP address, and for the first time ever, showing only this receipt as their sole income,” the Department mentioned, including that additional investigations are underway.