A joint team of officers of customs, central excise and service tax from commissionerates of Lucknow, Kanpur and Allahabad along with officers of income tax raided the premises of certain commercial coachings and security agencies and carried out search and seizure operations recently and detected evasion of service tax to the tune of more than Rs 1 crore.

According to the information given by commissioner of customs and central excise, Lucknow, Suchitra Sharma, in a press release, the sleuths of the commissionerate carried out another raid at M/s Sigma Trade Wings.

It was revealed during investigations that apart from M/s Sigma Trade Wings, five other firms were running advertisement and publicity business from the same premises. After making thorough investigations, the sleuths detected that these bogus firms had been set up with the sole intent of furthering tax evasion and fraud.

M/s Sigma Trade Wings and Kadam Advertising and Marketing Pvt Ltd had not been making proper payment of service tax since January, 1995 and March, 2005, respectively. It was also found that the total amount of money that they received from their clients, which include banks and other public sector companies had not been passed on to the department.

The department has initiated steps to take strict action against the said firms. Even income tax department has been asked to take suitable action against the partners of the firms, the release said.

The officer has forewarned all assessees of central excise and service tax to ensure timely payment of tax. The proprietors, partners, directors of firms and companies, who have not got their business establishments registered with the department so far or have not made proper payment of tax, have been advised to do the needful, else coercive action would be taken against them.