The Bureau of Investigation, the investigation wing of the sales tax directorate, today picked up a tea trader on charges of defaulting on sales tax.
Armed with an arrest warrant, sleuths of the bureau raided the Khalpara residence of Kamal Jain, who is also the vice-president of Siliguri Tea Traders’ Association (STTA), and detained him for interrogation.
Though police said an FIR had been lodged by the bureau with the Siliguri police station, Jain has not yet been arrested.
According to sources, C Forms submitted by Jain while filing the tax for inter-state sale of tea for the past three years were found to be false. This is the most recent case in which a businessman has been detained by the sales directorate ever since its officers detected massive tax evasions (amounting to several crores) last year. In December, Shyamlal Agarwal, another tea trader, was arrested on similar charges.
Tea traders are required to pay one per cent tax for auction purchase and seven per cent if the tea is sold within the state. The tax is two per cent for inter-state purchase. The sales tax directorate had discovered that a large number of traders had produced fake papers showing inter-state sale of tea, when the brew was actually sold within the state.
“It is nothing but harassment,” the secretary of STTA, said: “It is they who approved of the form three years ago and allowed the proceedings to take place. Now all of a sudden they come up, armed with an arrest warrant, saying that the forms produced are fake. They have even threatened to arrest him if he does not pay up the amount of over Rs 11 lakh. This is nothing short of extortion.”
Source > The Telegraph
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