The Income Tax (IT) Department caught a big fish recently as a land dealer in Ahmedabad declared a mammoth Rs13,000 crore after a raid was conducted at his residence and his Chartered Accountant’s office.
Mahesh Shah appeared at the ETV studio in Ahmedabad, nearly a week after he went absconding on November 29. Income Tax officers detained the property dealer to question him.
Earlier he told the TV channel that “Rs13,860 crore I declared under Income Disclosure Scheme is not mine”.
Earlier this week, the IT sleuth raided Mahesh Shah, a lesser known land dealer in the Gujarat’s commercial capital Ahmedabad. The IT officials reached at Shah’s residence and his Chartered Accountant’s office simultaneously and conducted a ‘Surgical Strike’ there.
Grilled over the bombarding of questions, Shah had reportedly declared under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) and suddenly became untraceable without paying the first instalment of the payable tax under the scheme. Shah, who is described by his chartered accountant as a “person with low-profile” and “travelled in an auto”, had reportedly become untraceable as soon as the Income Tax Department in Ahmedabad cancelled his IDS Form 2.
IDS offered immunity to those who declare their unaccounted income and pay the tax. Accordingly, Shah was to pay 45%, roughly Rs6,237 crore, of his declared money as tax. Shah had made disclosure of Rs13,860 crore cash said Tehmul Sethna, the chartered accountant. Sethna who is associated with around century old firm Apaji Amin & Co llP in Ahmedabad claimed that as per the IDS scheme, Shah had to Rs1,560 crore as the first instalment to the I-T department on basis of 25 per cent of the 45 per cent tax due on November 30.
However, when he failed to pay the first instalment till November 28, the IT sleuths cancelled his Form No 2 under Section 193 of the Finance Act, 2016 (IDS) and began search operations. “We got the order from the I-T department saying that they had conducted a 360-degree search on this person, and from that it appeared that he was not going to pay the tax and this (declaration) is likely to be a hoax. Also, the I-T officials had suspected some money laundering to happen through this, so they cancelled the form. I don’t know how that (money laundering) could happen because the demonetisation came later on,” claimed Sethna. Officials of the I-T department remained tight-lipped on the matter. Shah too could not be contacted. However Sethna maintained that Shah was in regular touch with him and kept on assuring to pay the amount but he didn’t till November 28th this year.
He further said that Shah didn’t mention his profession but he knew about his good contacts as well as dealings in large land parcels. Interestingly Sethna never doubted Shah ability to pay the amount. In fact it was Sethna who took the 67-year-0ld land dealer to the Principal Commissioner of Ahmedabad IT department where he declared the amount.