Pulse traders held for evading tax

Income tax officials busted on Tuesday a group of pulse traders who allegedly deposited ₹17 crore in a single transaction in a bank account here.

The authorities received a tipoff that ₹17 crore was deposited in an account with a nationalised bank at Nampalli here after the Centre banned high-value notes from last November.

Surprisingly, the account holder was not aware of the transaction and didn’t have a source of income that could validate the deposit.

During the interrogation, the account holder told the tax sleuths that the account was operated by his friend, who is an accountant with a pulses trader in Mukhthyar Gunj market in the old city.

Through the video footage obtained from the CCTV cameras in the bank, the authorities have identified the man who deposited the money in the account. “During enquiries, it was revealed that the traders of Mukhtiyar Gunj, Begum Bazar, Maharaj Gunj and Malakpet gave cash to this person for depositing it in this particular account and immediately transferring the same through RTGS to the accounts of various wholesale merchants involved in trading of pulses, grain, oil and textiles, at Lathur, Udgir, Akola and other cities in Maharashtra. They, in turn, sent goods to the respective traders of Hyderabad,” sources said.

In such transactions, payments are made through one account and goods are received in the name of a trader, other than the account holder from whose account the payments were made. Such goods are sold outside books without payment of VAT or other taxes.

“Investigations revealed that there are many such accounts in various other banks in the city, wherein there are only cash deposits and immediate RTGS to outstation parties in such accounts,” sources said.