I-T dept claims Hero Motocorp made bogus expenses of Rs 900 crore

NEW DELHI:  Days after Hero MotorCorp denied that the Income Tax Department has found the company making more than Rs 1,000 crore bogus expenses and over Rs 100 crore cash transactions for a farmhouse in Chhattarpur, Delhi. 

A statement issued by the Income Tax department said that the Department has found the business group of making bogus expenses of about Rs 900 crore, which include expenditure aggregating to more than Rs 800 crore in the guise of purchase of services from a specific event management entity. 

While the statement did not reveal name of the company and said it is an ‘Automobile Manufacturing Group’, official sources in the Department confirmed that it was indeed Hero Motocorp. “During the course of the search operation, various incriminating documents and digital evidence have been found and seized indicating that the expenses ostensibly shown to have been claimed towards business purposes are not fully supported by evidences.

Expenditure aggregating to more than Rs 800 crore has been booked in the guise of purchase of services from a specific event management entity. This entity has siphoned-off the money by way of layering.  Such claims towards non-business purposes are inadmissible expenditure under the provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961,” the statement said.

It added that in the search, it was also found that 10 acres of farm land at Delhi was purchased through few paper companies. In such transactions, unaccounted cash component of over Rs 60 crore was purportedly involved. The ultimate/ real beneficiary of the land deal is a prominent person of the automobile manufacturer group. The intermediary who facilitated the said deal has admitted in his statement that major part of the sale consideration was paid in cash, claimed the department.