I-T department rejects Mumbai family’s `2 lakh-cr disclosure

GUJARAT BUSINESSMAN MAHESH SHAH, WHO HAD EARLIER DECLARED `13,860 CRORE, WAS GRILLED BY TAXMEN BEFORE BEING LET OFF

The government will not take into account two high-value disclosures under an amnesty scheme for tax dodgers — `2 lakh crore by a Mumbai family of four and `13,860 crore by an Ahmedabad-based realtor. The Union finance ministry said the declarations were rejected as these were “suspicious in nature, being filed by persons of small means”.

According to the I-T department, the case was rejected because three of the four PAN numbers were originally in Ajmer, which were migrated in September 2016 to Mumbai, the place of declaration.

Likewise, Gujarati realtor Mahesh Shah’s case looked fudgy too. Shah, who declared unaccounted for income of `13,860 crore before going “missing” and then surfacing on TV on Saturday, faced questions from taxmen through the night before being allowed to leave for a day. “The 67-year-old is a heart patient,” an officer said.

The realtor, whose business interests are mostly in Mumbai, was “missing” after he defaulted on the first tax instalment of over Rs 1,500 crore on the amount he had disclosed. He was supposed to pay the instalment by November 30 as a part of the amnesty, called the income declaration scheme (IDS).

Shah alleged he was offered a commission to make the declaration, but the real owners of the money backed out before the first instalment was to be paid.

In Mumbai’s Bandra, residents of Jubilee Court, Linking Road, woke up on Sunday to see a media scrum outside their building. The reason: A family, the Sayeds, in the building declared an income of Rs 2 lakh crore. The residents say they have never heard of the Sayeds living in flat number four as claimed by the official government release. They claim the flat has been vacant for several years.

A resident said: “Around a decade ago, Shailesh Hingorani owned the flat and he used to run a beauty parlour. Before that, RR Vaid lived there and sold the flat around 15 years ago.” Like Shah’s, the income tax department rejected the family’s declaration. But in both cases investigations are on.

The finance ministry revised the “black money” disclosed under scheme to Rs 67,382 crore, which will fetch a little over Rs 30,000 crore in direct taxes.