New Delhi, July 28 (Agency) Income Tax Department has carried out a search and seizure operation on two business groups in Tamil Nadu and claimed to have seized unaccounted cash exceeding Rs 14 crore and gold and jewellery valued at over Rs 10 crore. While one business group was engaged in real estate, the other was in contracts related to road and railway construction, an official statement said on Thursday. The search operation conducted on July 20, 2022, covered more than 30 premises located in and around Madurai and Chennai. As a result of the search action, a large number of incriminating evidences including documents and digital data were found and seized. ‘In the case of the group involved in the real estate business, the evidences have revealed that the group has indulged in large scale tax evasion by accepting huge unaccounted cash by way of on-money.
The group was using software to maintain a parallel set of books of such unaccounted cash transactions,’ the statement said. In the case of the other group involved in the business of construction contracts, it is found that the group was allegedly involved in large scale tax evasion by debiting bogus sub-contract expenses and inflation of purchases of various raw materials through self-made vouchers. In the modus-operandi followed by the group, the contract amounts were allegedly paid to bogus sub-contractors through banking channels, and after withdrawal, the cash was returned to the assessee group, the statement said. ‘The search operation in these groups has revealed unaccounted income exceeding Rs 150 crore,’ the statement added.