The investigation wing of Income-Tax Department, Hyderabad Directorate, will focus more on curbing tax evasion by educational institutions and companies/individuals in commercially important towns of Andhra Pradesh.

Sufficient evidence

"Our searches conducted so far have sufficient evidence to prove that many educational institutes are evading tax. Educational institutes, especially private engineering and medical colleges, are our priority list," Mr M. Ahmed, Director General of Income-Tax (Investigations), told newspersons here on Friday.

The Department's intelligence wing was collecting information on possible evasion of taxes by companies and individuals in towns. "We want to send a message that the towns are not beyond the reach of I-T department," he said.

Raids under way

Currently, the department is in the process of raiding a Hyderabad-based beauty and obesity control clinic. "This is not an ordinary beauty parlour but is engaged in a very high value services with 20 clinics in AP and one branch each in Chennai and Bangalore," Mr Ahmed said.

"The raids began on May 23. We have got two locker keys and jewellery worth Rs 50 lakh some of which had been disclosed earlier. Prohibitory orders have been claomped on the management. The search is still on and we are awaiting information from Chennai and Bangalore," he added.

On the performance of Hyderabad Directorate (covering entire Andhra Pradesh and Yanam in Puducherry) during 2006-07, Mr Ahmed said the year marked the highest ever seizure of Rs 15.4 crore in cash.

Begumpet airport

"Besides, there was a maximum cash seizure of Rs 3.58 crore in a single case at Begumpet Airport, Hyderabad. The amount of undisclosed income admitted by the assessees searched was also highest at Rs 334.45 crore in 2006-07. This was 340 per cent more compared to Rs 75.91 crore during 2005-06," the official said.

The total seizure for the year was Rs 18.88 crore of which cash seizure was Rs 15.46 crore. "This was 25 per cent higher than the seizure in 2005-06," he said.

The search operations were carried out in 44 group cases, with the execution of 346 search warrants.

260% increase

Surveys and open enquiries resulted in the detection of concealment to the extent of Rs 24.21 crore as against Rs 6.7 crore in 2005-06 marking an increase of about 260 per cent.

On the budget collections front, Rs 10,918 crore was collected during 2006-07 compared to Rs 6.683 crore in the previous fiscal, marking a 53 per cent increase.

The collections during April 2007 were Rs 509 crore, against Rs 384 crore in the corresponding month last fiscal, Mr Ahmed said.

G. Naga Sridhar