The Income Tax Department on Monday said it had detected huge tax evasion during the searches it conducted on the premises of the MGM Group last week. The tax sleuths searched over 40 premises belonging to the group in Chennai, Villupuram, Puducherry, Coimbatore and Hyderabad. Both the brothers who run the group - MGM Anand and MGM Maran - were under the I-T scanner.
A statement from an official spokesperson for the I-T Department said that during the searches, various pieces of incriminating documentary and digital evidence were seized. An analysis of the evidence indicated that the assessee group had indulged in large-scale tax evasion exceeding ₹400 crore by debiting non-genuine purchase bills in the books of account of varied businesses. Details provided in the statement showed that these non-genuine purchase bills were obtained either from the group’s regular material suppliers or from accommodation entry providers. The seized evidence also revealed that the payments made to the material suppliers through cheques had been received back in cash for making unaccounted investments and other purposes.
The group was also found to be controlling back-office operations of its international chain of hotels from India. So far, the searches have led to the seizure of ₹3 crore in undisclosed cash and unaccounted gold jewellery worth ₹2.5 crore.
Further investigation is on.
