Income Tax Dept raids Tamil Nadu poultry group, seizes Rs 3.3 crore in unaccounted cash

The Income Tax Department announced on Tuesday that they carried out search and seizure operations in the state of Tamil Nadu against a group who were engaged in the manufacturing of animal feed, poultry farming, edible oils and export of egg products. The search operations on the group were initiated on 27 September 2021 and covered 40 premises in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

The Income Tax Department seized several documents, including electronic data in the form of pen drives and hard disks. The Ministry of Finance said in its official release that those seized documents indicated that the group was involved in suppressing its income by inflating expenses including booking bogus purchases along with under-invoicing of sales and also by non-reflecting scrap/by-products sales in the regular books of accounts.

The analysis of documents further revealed that the unaccounted income generated has been utilised to invest in the acquisition of various immovable properties. The Ministry of Finance said in its release, “The search action has resulted in the seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs. 3.3 crore and detection of unaccounted income exceeding Rs. 300 crore. Further investigations are in progress.”

IT Department’s raid in Hyderabad

Earlier in October, the Ministry of Finance announced that the Income Tax Department based in Hyderabad conducted search and seizure operations on a pharmaceutical company and seized Rs 142.87 crore worth of unaccounted cash. The Ministry of Finance further said that the unaccounted income is estimated to be valued at Rs 550 crore. The statement read, "This Pharmaceutical group is engaged in the business of manufacturing of intermediates, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and formulations. The majority of the products are exported to foreign countries i.e. USA, Europe, Dubai and other African countries.”

As per the statement, there were multiple searches conducted at more than 50 locations. The IT officials were informed about the hideouts, where they seized even more unaccounted cash and the unofficial records. The officials also seized several bank lockers stacked with unaccounted money. The ministry said, "Incriminating evidence in the form of digital media, pen drives, documents, etc. have been found and seized. Incriminating digital evidence was gathered from SAP @ ERP software maintained by the assessee group."