Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Sept 4: In one of its major operation against tax evasion, the Income Tax Department today carried out raids in the business establishments and houses of the six top jewelers in Jammu city and laid hands on large number of incriminating documents. The department is expecting recovery of huge amount of undisclosed income from these jewelers on the completion of raids and scrutiny of the impounded documents.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that on the basis of credible information from the officers of J&K Circle and complaints about evasion of income tax by top jewelers of Jammu, Investigation Wing of the Income Tax Department decided to tighten noose around these jewelers by carrying out raids in their business establishments as well as residential houses.
Accordingly, the Director General, Investigation Wing of the Income Tax Department, who operates from Chandigarh and covers whole of North West Region, issued formal orders and constituted teams of more than 50 officers from Ludhiana to conduct raids with the assistance of officers of the Department posted in Jammu.
The teams accompanied by the police contingents started raids in all the business establishments of six top jewelers and their residential houses simultaneously this morning thereby leaving no scope for these jewelers to make any attempt to cover up their tax evasion activities, sources said. The raids, which started in the morning, continued till mid-night with IT sleuths laying hands on several incriminating documents indicating that these jewelers were leaving no stone unturned to conceal income and evade tax.
They disclosed that a total of seven residential houses and nine business establishments were raided by the IT sleuths to unearth the tax evasion. The jewelers whose premises were raided are Talla Jewelers, Silverlines, Suri Jewelers, Krishna Jewelers, Ravindera Jewelers and Shiv Jewelers. “The evasion of Income Tax was noticed more in case of Silverlines as compared to other jewelers”, sources added.
In response to a question, sources said, “these jewelers have failed to mend their ways despite repeated general warnings issued by the IT Department against concealing the income”, adding “instead of coming forward for paying taxes as per their exact income, these jewelers continued to conceal the income by making every possible attempt”.
“These jewelers were on the radar of the Income Tax Department for the past quite long time and soon after getting credible information the Investigation Wing of the Department decided to lay hands on them in order to unearth tax evasion”, sources said in response to another question.
About the outcome of the raids and searches, they said, “since searches, evaluation and examination of stock takes time, clear picture about the evasion of tax by these jewelers will emerge within next one or two days”, adding “from the preliminary scrutiny of the records it came to fore that there was concealment of stocks in almost all the jewelers”.
It is pertinent to mention here that this was one of its kind major operation of the Investigating Wing in Jammu and is an indication that department will leave no stone unturned to tighten noose around the tax evaders in the coming days.
Meanwhile, taking strong exception of the massive raids in the Lakhdatta Bazar and Jain Bazar by the sleuths of Income Tax, traders of both these markets held protest against what they termed act of harassment.
Jointly led by Swarankar Sangh President Kulbhushan Anand and Sarafa Association President Parjan Jain, more than one thousand people gathered at Jain Bazar and raised slogans against the manner in which the people associated with the trade were subjected to harassment.
Speaking on the occasion, Kulbhushan Anand and Parjan Jain said, “the manner in which the raids were conducted reminded of the British Rule when there existed no law of the land and unilateral decisions were taken and implemented”, adding “our traders have always co-operated the Government departments and we have been paying all our taxes and other dues on time. Not only this, we are providing employment to a large number of unemployed youth. We are an important part of the society and have a status among the business community as well. Instead of appreciating our community, the Government has behaved in a very inhuman manner, which is very unfortunate and has invited resentment”.
Swarankar Sangh, Jammu District General Secretary Ajay Vaid announced that the Swarankar and Sarafa Association will observe complete bandh in whole of Jammu district in protest against the uncalled raids.
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