Canbank Emerges Top Advance Tax Payer

Two public sector banks, Canara Bank and the Mangalore-based Corporation Bank, head the top ten advance tax payers list in the Karnataka-Goa region for the financial year 1996-97, relegating the multinational and last year's topper MICO to the third position.

Canara Bank leads the list for shelling out Rs 102 crore as advance tax.

This amount is a substantial jump compared with the advance tax of Rs 15 crore paid up by the bank last year. Corporation Bank, which had paid just Rs 13 crore last year, has submitted Rs 67 crore this year.

MICO has slid to the third position by paying Rs 54.40 crore, as compared with Rs 65.30 crore last year.

 

Other public sector units such as BEL, BEML and Kudremukh figure among the first top ten advance tax payers for the same region. In fact, BEL's share to the Income-Tax Department has jumped 25 times more against last years figure. Its advance tax payments were just Rs 1.60 crore last year, which has risen to Rs 25 crore.

Smithkline French Ltd and Widia India were among the top ten list, while the flagging fortunes of the publishing industry was seen in the tax payments of the Printers (Mysore) Ltd, publishers of the leading English daily in Karnataka.

The company, which paid Rs 15.25 crore last year, managed to submit only Rs 7.91 crore this year. Infosys Technologies, the TTK group, Kirloskar Electric, Mysore Breweries, Jindal Aluminium Ltd and V S Dempo were the other companies found among the first twenty advance tax payers.

Meanwhile, the investigation wing of the Income-Tax Department has been active in its jurisdiction areas, Karnataka, Goa and Kerala, for 1996-97.

Its biggest seizure during the year was the Sagar Group which was involved in running educational institutions and marriage halls.

The department seized Rs 1.20 crore of unaccounted cash and fixed deposits.