Tax Evasion

Former US President Donald Trump seemed little fazed by the possible indictment on the lower Manhattan Tax Evasion case following Attorney General Letitia James prosecution

The GST Council in its meeting on Saturday is likely to discuss setting up appellate tribunals and mechanism to curb tax evasion in pan masala and gutkha business, sources said. The report of panel of ministers on Goods and Services Tax (GST) on online gaming and casinos may not come up for deliberation at the February 18 meeting of the GST Council, chaired by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and comprising her state counterparts. The items, which could not be discussed by the Council in its last meeting on December 17, 2022, would top the agenda of the 49th GST Council meeting on February 18, the sources said. The report of the Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by Odisha finance minister Niranjan Pujari, on checking tax evasion by pan masala and gutkha industry would be taken up for discussion. The report of the GoM on Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunals (GSTATs) was set up in July last year under the chairmanship of Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala.

The United States on Tuesday said it is aware of the survey operation conducted by the Indian tax authorities at the BBC office in Delhi but is not in a position to offer its judgement. The Income Tax officials said the operation was part of a tax evasion investigation. "We are aware of the search of the BBC offices in Delhi by Indian tax authorities. I would need to refer you to Indian authorities for the details of this search. Beyond this discrete action, what I'll say more broadly is the general point that I've consistently made in this context, but in a universal context as well," State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters here. "We support the importance of free press around the world. We continue to highlight the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as human rights that contribute to strengthening democracies around the world. It has strengthened this democracy here in this country. It has strengthened India's democracy," Price ...

DRI sent Samsung India a show cause notice, accusing it of skirting import taxes by misclassifying networking devices called remote radio heads to avail undue exemption of basic customs duty

The agency has asked the company on why it should not impose penalty against the management

Decriminalisation of offences under the GST law, setting up appellate tribunals and mechanism to curb tax evasion in pan masala and gutkha businesses are among the issues slated to be discussed in the GST Council meeting which began on Saturday morning. Besides, GST on online gaming and casinos may come up for deliberations at the Council meeting. The Group of Ministers (GoM), chaired by Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, set up last year on the issue had submitted its report to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday. The Council would also consider a report of tax officers and give clarity on the rate applicability in certain goods and services. "Union Finance Minister Smt. @nsitharaman chairs the 48th meeting of the GST Council via virtual mode, in New Delhi, today," the finance ministry tweeted. With regard to decriminalisation of offences, the law committee of the GST Council, comprising tax officers from the Centre and states, has suggested to the Council to ...

GST Council will also consider a ministerial panel report on setting up GST Appellate Tribunals

The state GST department has conducted raids in 71 districts of Uttar Pradesh in two days

Donald Trump's company was convicted of tax fraud on Tuesday in a case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, a significant repudiation of financial practices at the former president's business. A jury found two corporate entities at the Trump Organization guilty on all 17 counts, including conspiracy charges and falsifying business records. The verdict came on the second day of deliberations following a trial in which the Trump Organization was accused of being complicit in a scheme by top executives to avoid paying personal income taxes on job perks such as rent-free apartments and luxury cars. The conviction is a validation for New York prosecutors, who have spent three years investigating the former president and his businesses, though the penalties aren't expected to be severe enough to jeopardize the future of Trump's company. As punishment, the Trump Organization could be fined up to USD 1.6 million a relatively small amount for a company of its size, though the ...

Donald Trump knew exactly what was going on" with top Trump Organisation executives who schemed for years to dodge taxes on company-paid perks, a prosecutor said Thursday, challenging defence claims that the former president was unaware of the plot at the heart of the company's tax fraud case. Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass lobbed the bombshell allegation during closing arguments. He promised to share more details when he resumes on Friday, buoyed by the judge's decision to grant prosecutors permission to veer into territory that had been considered off limits because Trump is on trial. Judge Juan Manuel Merchan, overruling a defence objection after the jury had left court, said the company's lawyers opened the door by asserting in their closing arguments that Trump was ignoring of the scheme, hatched by his longtime finance chief just steps from his Trump Tower office. It was the defense who invoked the name Donald Trump numerous times," Merchan said, setting up a potential

Donald Trump's company cultivated a culture of fraud and deception by lavishing luxe perks on executives and falsifying records to hide the compensation, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday during closing arguments at the Trump Organisation's criminal tax fraud trial. Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass' fiery summation followed defence arguments that sought to focus blame for the fraud on longtime company finance chief Allen Weisselberg, who has admitted scheming to avoid paying personal income taxes on a company-paid apartment, luxury cars and other goodies. Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg," Trump Organisation lawyer Michael Van der Veen said, punctuating his closing argument with the defence team's mantra during the monthlong trial. Steinglass pushed back when it was his turn, telling jurors: Both halves of that sentence are wrong. It wasn't just Weisselberg doing it and it wasn't just Weisselberg who benefited. The Trump Organisation, the entity through whi

The Income-tax department on Wednesday conducted searches at the premises of Mumbai-based Metropolis Healthcare that runs medical diagnostic centres as part of a tax evasion investigation, official sources said. The locations of the company in Mumbai are being covered, they said. A response from the company is awaited. The company is a prominent player in the medical tests and diagnostics business domain. It had last week reported a consolidated profit after tax of Rs 40.5 crore for the second quarter that ended September 30.

In a multi-agency operation led by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), officials are carrying out searches at around 200 locations in the state linked to more than 100 firms, and questioning people for suspected tax evasion and similar offences, sources said. Apart from the ATS, officials of the state Goods and Services Tax (GST) department and Ahmedabad crime branch are involved in the mega operation, they said. According to the sources, the searches are being carried out in several districts of the state, including Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar, against 122 firms. The authorities are questioning around 74 suspects in this connection and the operation is likely to expose large-scale tax-related offences, they said. Several cases of issuance of bogus bills to commit input tax credit (ITC) fraud have been detected in the state in recent times, the sources said.

The Income Tax Department on Friday conducted searches at properties linked to Jharkhand Congress MLAs Kumar Jaimangal and Pradip Yadav, officials said. Jaimangal alias Anup Singh is a legislator from Bermo, while Yadav who joined Congress after splitting from the JVM-P represents Poriyahat. Congress is a partner of the JMM-led ruling alliance in the state. The searches were conducted at the properties of the legislators in Ranchi, Bermo and Patna, officials said. Some private people, including an iron ore trader in Chaibasa, were also searched by the I-T Department, they said. Jaimangal said he was extending full cooperation to the I-T Department which is conducting the searches as part of an investigation into tax evasion charges. "The searches were carried out under the pressure of the BJP. Such action will have to be faced by those who are against BJP. I am against BJP and so, I am facing it. But, it can't scare me," he told reporters. Jaimangal was the MLA who in August lod

The Income Tax Department has conducted searches against two major luxury watch sellers in Delhi as part of a tax evasion probe, officials said Tuesday. The sleuths launched the raids on Monday on the premises of Kapoor Watch Company and Johnson Company and their promoters on Monday, they said. Phone calls and email sent by PTI to the two companies did not elicit a response. The officials said the tax department looked at the account books, sales bills and other documents as part of the searches conducted to probe alleged tax evasion and charges of reported cash sale of watches that are worth a few lakhs. The two companies have showrooms in prominent Delhi markets and deal in several high-end watches, including that of foreign brands.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on October 31 a plea seeking to establish special anti-corruption courts in every district to decide cases related to various economic offences like money laundering and tax evasion within one year. According to the cause list of October 31 uploaded on the apex court website, the petition is slated to come up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justices S R Bhat and Bela M Trivedi. The PIL filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay has also sought directions to high courts to take appropriate steps to decide cases related to economic offences. The PIL, filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, contended that the Centre and State governments have also not taken appropriate steps in this regard. None of the government departments are corruption-free, it submitted. Due to long pendency and ineffective anti-corruption laws, even after 73 years of Independence and 70 years after becoming a socialist secular democratic

GST officers can now launch prosecution against offenders in cases where the amount of evasion or misuse of input tax credit is more than Rs 5 crore, the Finance Ministry has said. However, this monetary threshold will not be applicable in the case of habitual evaders or in cases where arrests have been made at the time of investigation. "One of the important considerations for deciding whether prosecution should be launched is the availability of adequate evidence, the GST investigation wing under the Finance Ministry said, while issuing instructions for launching prosecution. Prosecution should normally be launched where the amount of tax evasion, or misuse of ITC, or fraudulently obtained refund is more than Rs 5 crore, it said. Launching of prosecution by taxmen means commencement of legal proceedings against the offender. This limit will not apply and prosecution can be launched in the case of a company/taxpayer habitually involved in tax evasion or misusing Input Tax Credit

The Income-Tax department is going into "new areas" of the economy to check tax evasion even as its investigation units are using analytics to sift through voluminous data on Indians holding assets abroad, CBDT Chairman Nitin Gupta has said. The Central Board of Direct Taxes, the administrative body for the tax department, undertakes search and seizure operations to check instances of tax evasion apart from performing its regular task of collecting revenue for the government under the direct taxes category. "We are covering a variety of sectors of the economy (while undertaking searches and raids). We are not limiting ourselves to real estate or developers only...our action is spread across sections of economy right from healthcare to pharma to developers to industries, manufacturers, service providers etc. "We are touching new areas and various sectors of the economy which were never touched like asset reconstruction companies, gaming, betting etc.," Gupta said during an ...

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due to appear on Friday before a parliamentary panel in the northern state of Hamburg to answer lawmakers' questions regarding what he knew about a tax evasion scam when he was mayor of the city. Political opponents have called on Scholz to provide more information about meetings he had in 2016 and 2017 with private bank MM Warburg that faced demands to repay millions of euros in tax refunds it had wrongly claimed for share trades. Scholz has previously stated that he doesn't remember details of the meetings, but denies that he intervened to get Hamburg officials to drop the repayment demands. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the centre-right Christian Democrats said he didn't believe Scholz's memory lapses. When you're talking about a tax demand in the three-figure millions concerning such a big bank in your own city, then you don't forget what was said during the conversation, Merz told German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview publish

Scholz has been dogged by questions about meetings he had with private bank M.M. Warburg in 2016 and 2017.