In one of the largest searches on arecanut merchants, Commercial Tax officials unearthed ₹11 crore worth undeclared arecanut in Shivamogga and Sagar on Wednesday and levied tax and penalty of ₹1.1 crore under GST in an operation spanning 13 locations.
The tax officials earlier last week unearthed undeclared arecanut worth ₹3.1 crore in five godowns at Channagiri taluk of Davangere, and levied tax and penalty of ₹31 lakh.
No documents
The action from the Enforcement wing headed by Additional Commissioner Nitesh K. Patil comes in the light of information that during COVID-19 large quantity of arecanut was being purchased and stored by some traders without valid documents. Officials had kept a close watch on the godowns and movement of goods. Searches were conducted on nine locations in Shivamogga and four locations in Sagar in the early hours on Wednesday.
During inspection, two godowns were found to be undeclared, and transactions outside the regular books of accounts to suppress a turnover of ₹11.02 crore, said a release from Commercial Tax Commissioner M.S. Srikar.
It is also suspected that some traders have obtained fictitious invoices from fictitious traders in Tamil Nadu in order to claim input tax credit, the release said, adding that since the transactions were made outside the book of accounts, details will be shared with APMC authorities.
GST violations
Department sources said that the vigilance has been increased to detect any possible GST violations since lockdown period had ended, and that there was a need to increase compliance to mop up better resource collection for the State.
These searchers were part of it, and that the department was keeping an eye in other sectors too, sources said.
