The Economic intelligence unit (EIU) of Maharashtra sales tax department has added `1,575 crore to the coffers of the state exchequer in a year and caught 2,065 hawala operators as well as 42,000 beneficiaries across the state, who would use fake bills to evade sales tax.
These operators and beneficiaries were involved in a total transaction worth `34,000 crore and tax evasion of `1,575 crore.
These rackets have been busted by EIU in around 4,000 raids. 85 per cent of the operators and beneficiaries were found in Mumbai, Thane, Nalasopara and Palghar areas. This unit was opened on February 21 last year.
This EIU’s effort is the first ever such drive in India to check the revenue leakage. This initiative has also helped other central taxing agencies like Income-Tax, service tax to expand their taxpayer base by sharing the details of these operators and beneficiaries. The I-T department has already launched a survey upon these operators.
“I am quite happy with our unit’s effort and I hope it will act as a torch-bearer for the other states too. I never expected that a staff of around 50 officers would do such a great job,” said Sanjay Bhatia, sales tax commissioner of Maharashtra, who propounded this intelligence unit. “With the help of advanced technology and computerisation, our team analysed the data, focused on errant sales tax evaders and then found big racketeers of hawala operators, issued invoices on fake addresses and conned the sales tax department. During last year, we have recovered `700 crore and the operation is on to recover the rest of `875 crore, which include evaded tax, interest, plus 25 per cent tax penalty,” Mr Bhatia added.
Head of this intelligence unit, joint commissioner Prashant Bilolikar said, “Unit has also set-up ‘360 degree pilot’ project by which the sales tax department of Maharashtra had a tie-up with the central finance ministry to receive data in electronic form from the customs. I-T, service tax, central excise and with the help of this data we keep constant watch from all angles.”