IT searches unearth suppression of sales worth Rs 1000 crore by popular retail chains in TN
CHENNAI: The Income Tax department on Tuesday said searches on the Saravana Super Stores and Saravana Selvarathnam groups engaged in the retail sales of jewellery, textiles and home appliances through their popular chain of stores in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tirunelveli have resulted in the seizure of Rs 10 crore in cash and jewellery/bullion worth about Rs 6 crore.
The Income Tax Department, which searched a total of 37 premises in the four cities on December 1, stated that during the search of one of the groups (without naming them), it was found that the assessee had been actively involved in systematically suppressing sales by manipulating their books of accounts.
The extent of suppression of sales was found to be more than Rs 1000 crore, over a period of several years. It was also found that the group made unaccounted cash purchases of about Rs 150 crore in the textile division and jewellery division, during the past few years.
Similarly, during the searches carried out on the second group, incriminating material seized has revealed that the assessee group had obtained bogus bills from a set of parties to the tune of Rs 80 crore and thereby suppressed taxable income.
Evidence relating to the unaccounted purchases of gold has also been gathered. Besides, the assessee group was found to be debiting inflated manufacturing charges of jewellery. In addition, unaccounted rental receipts and unaccounted scrap sales aggregating to Rs 7 crore have also been detected.
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