BHAGALPUR: Taxmen have turned `Munnabhais’ of the `Lage Raho…’ reel fame in real life.
Sounds interesting, and it promises to be effective too. So believe income-tax department bosses in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district as they launched the `Gandhigiri’ on Tuesday, offering red roses to 100 and odd tax evaders with a view to “inculcating a sense of morality in them”. The flowers were accompanied with a missive that read, “Taxes are the price we pay for our well-being.”
Several businessmen and doctors, including a leading orthopaedic surgeon, were among the recipients of the flowers that must have left them flustered. “The goal is to make them pay up the dues,” a tax official told TOI as he rattled off figures to say that as many as 563 assessees owe Rs 23.11 crore to the department in the Bhagalpur zone.
The department has prepared a dossier on the defaulters whose income, it has calculated, is many times more than that they have acknowledged on paper to pay taxes.
What if the `Gandhigiri’ doesn’t work? “Well, we have kept our options open,” the official said and added harsh lawful action would follow to unearth the black money.
Sources said the department has on its radar the untaxed income being generated by industrialists, businessmen, doctors, coaching centres, schools, hotels and others. “We are in the know of the movable and immovable properties amassed without paying taxes,” the official said.
The department is also learned to have gathered inputs on the sale and transfer of high-value properties, especially land transactions, taking place on the outskirts of the cities falling under the Bhagalpur zone. Last fiscal, the department conducted a survey and scrutiny exercise on more than 250 organizations and medical professionals and detected evasion of taxes worth Rs 60 crore. “The move yielded handsome results in the form of revenue for the department,” said Bhagalpur zone commissioner of income-tax Prashant Bhushan.
Read more: Taxmen turn ‘Munnabhais’ to evaders – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Taxmen-turn-Munnabhais-to-evaders-/articleshow/7101561.cms#ixzz18D4XFYx0