The Telangana government has decided to give up to Rs 50,000 as incentive to informers, who reveal or alert the government about “zero business”, or commercial tax evasion by commercial establishments. This depends on the value of their information.

If the amount recovered is huge, 10 per cent of the amount recovered will be given as incentive.

Commercial taxes minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav said at the Secretariat that the government will amend the VAT Act to check tax evasion by online trading firms.

He said corporate hospitals, hotels, jewellery shops, cinemas among others were not paying taxes properly, resulting in huge loss to the state exchequer.

“It has come to our notice that rampant zero business is taking place in several markets. Also corporate hospitals, hotels, cinema theatres, jewellery shops among others are not paying taxes. We are not getting correct information on tickets sold by theatres in the online mode. Besides, hotels too are not disclosing exact sales volumes. We are planning to bring a centralised tax monitoring mechanism wherein commercial establishments would be linked with a central server at commercial taxes department to check tax evasion,” Mr Yadav said.

With regard to ban on pan masalas, he said that the state has no power to impose penalty or cancel the licence of traders who sell them. “Though the Centre has imp-osed a ban on sale of tobacco products, the state cannot do anything except to catch the traders and refer the case to the police station.”