Delhi govt warns strict action against companies defaulting on tax payments

Cracking the whip on tax defaulters, the Delhi government Tuesday warned them of stringent action as it found that 10,800 companies did not pass on the full amount they collected from people as taxes, an official statement said.

It stated that around 970 companies have paid zero tax to the Delhi government from January to March.

The statement said the government has issued notices to all defaulters, saying that the tax should be paid within 15 days failing which stringent action would be taken against them.

The Delhi government has so far evaluated 15,000 companies and plans to examine seven lakh firms registered under the GST, the statement said.

"The Delhi government has received around Rs 2,015 crore lesser tax than last year's (collection). In 2019, the government had collected around Rs 5,792 crores as tax returns but this year from January to March, the tax collection has been only Rs 3,777 crore," the statement said.

The Delhi government has also issued notices to 111 liquor companies that did not pay VAT from January to March.

In the statement, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the finance portfolio, appealed to all the companies that have not deposited the full tax to immediately deposit the amount.

"This is public money which the companies have collected from the people but did not deposit to the government. This will affect government work for the development of the citizens including the fight against the COVID pandemic.

"The Delhi government will take stringent actions against the companies who will not deposit the full amount of tax," Sisodia was quoted as saying.

The Trade & Taxes Department has started analysing the return filing status of taxpayers registered in GST.

"Around 15,000 high turnover taxpayers were analysed and it was seen that almost 970 taxpayers belonging to both Centre and state jurisdiction have not filed returns for Q4 2019-20 and Q1 2020-21.

The extended time period granted for the filing of GST return for Q1 2020-21 got over in July 2020," the government said in statement.

The department has been able to recover Rs 10 crore from two such defaulting companies in the last one week, it said, adding that it is also analysing the tax payment profile of such taxpayers along with their overall tax profile in the previous quarters.

Last week, three major search operations were conducted against the defaulters, including marble and granite companies and bulk taxpayers and a tax of Rs 20.70 lakh was collected from them.

"In one case, the company's office was sealed. In the second case, the company's papers were confiscated. The Delhi government has also taken action against movement of goods without carrying e-way bills.

"With effect from June 23, around 140 vehicles have been detained and tax and penalty collected to the tune of approximately Rs 1 crore," it added.