The Income Tax Department on Thursday claimed to have detected tax evasion worth millions of rupees after raiding the premises of businesses linked to Haryana Congressman Dharam Singh Chhokar and others.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the tax department’s decision-making body, said the group wanted on Wednesday was active in real estate, housing, hospitality and retail. alcohols.

The CBDT did not identify the group in a statement here, but official sources said the companies were linked to Chhokar, the member of the Legislative Assembly from Samalkha’s seat in the state.

Tax sleuths covered a dozen premises in Samalkha, Gurgaon, Rohtak and Panchkula during the raids and action was taken due to ‘non-compliance’ with faceless assessment notices.

This is likely the first reported instance where an enforcement action such as a raid has been taken by the department after the assessee allegedly failed to comply with the newly introduced faceless assessment procedures.

“Notices under the Faceless Assessment Program sent to some assessees were still not honored even though they received them,” the CBDT said.

”Data analysis revealed that the recipients were people with little or no means. Subsequent internal and discreet investigations revealed that the said people were the front of the said group and were also the benamidars of some of the members of the group,” he alleged.

Investigation revealed that the people to whom the notices were directed were engaged in an alcohol business run by the group.

”It was found that those people to whom liquor licenses were issued were the benamidars of the main members of the group. They were people with no resources and they declared under oath that they had no knowledge of the business run on their behalf,” the CBDT said.

”It seems that their names have been misused to take advantage of the quota reserved for the SC/ST section. Further investigation is underway to establish the money trail and the actual ownership. Appropriate action under the Benami Prohibition Act will be taken in all such cases,” the statement said.

He said the tax authorities had collected evidence proving the false booking of apartments in the name of employees/relatives and unidentifiable persons, as part of the group’s affordable housing program project.

”The company has allocated houses to employees of group members, whose uncashed checks were found at the scene. However, the apartments were sold to the actual buyer at a premium of Rs 6-10 lakh each,’ CBDT alleged.

Bonuses were received in cash and not recorded in the books. The premium was also charged to other buyers in this affordable housing program, the CBDT said.

“Thus, there is not only misuse of the scheme but also tax evasion which is estimated at no less than Rs 36 crore,” he claimed.

The statement said the group has “claimed false expenditures for construction materials like cement, raiti (sand), iron bars, etc. of around Rs 100 crore, in previous years, resulting in a massive tax evasion.

“In addition, the group was also found to regularly claim huge fictitious business promotion expenses, in previous years, and launder the embezzled money as unrecorded investment in real estate properties,” it said. he asserted.

The CBDT said the group funneled its ‘unaccounted’ revenue of Rs 70 crore in the form of fake share capital and unsecured loan, through a shell company which was invested in the buyout of a project real estate from a popular builder in Gurgaon.

“Evidence in the form of property documents and title deeds has been found regarding investments in Benami properties in India as well as outside the country,” he said.

Claiming that the group incurred unrecorded expenses for personal and business purposes in cash which amounted to millions of rupees, the CBDT said that this included expenses to obtain various project approvals and lavish wedding expenses.

He added that an unexplained investment in jewelery of around Rs 3 crore was discovered and four bank lockers of the group were taken under control.

(This story has not been edited by the Devdiscourse team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)