Top 100 tax defaulters owe Rs 1.41 lakh crore

[ashutosh majumdar]

I read this piece on IBNLive.

New Delhi: Country's largest state-owned bank State Bank of India (SBI), automobile giant Tata Motors and oil major Indian Oil Corporation, besides Sahara India and its promoter Subroto Roy figure in the list of top 100 tax defaulters in the country.

Disclosing the list of defaulters in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, the Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said in a written reply that top 100 tax defaulters owe to the exchequer Rs 1.41 lakh crore - more than three times the amount the government spends on National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) scheme annually to provide employment to Below Poverty Line families.

The Centre is taking various steps to recover the outstanding dues, the Minister said, adding that the government has requested the adjudicating authorities like ITAT and Settlement Commission "to dispose of high demand cases expeditiously."

As per the list, disgraced stud farm owner Hassan Ali Khan tops the list of tax defaulters with an outstanding arrear of more than Rs 50,000 crore.

The list of tax defaulters also includes stock broker late Harshad Mehta and his associates and other brokers like AD Narrotam and Hiten Dalal.

While the SBI owes Rs 333.6 crore in taxes, Tata Motors and Indian Oil Corporation have to pay Rs 206.5 crore and Rs 210.3 crore to the treasury.

As regards Sahara, many of its group companies figure in the list of defaulters, while its promoter Roy owes Rs 230 crore to the exchequer.

Among leading public sector undertakings, BSNL has a tax demand of about Rs 2,417 crore, while NTPC faces a demand for Rs 622 crore. VSNL Ltd (now Tata Communications Ltd) has a tax demand of about Rs 505.5 crore.

Among Sahara group companies, Sahara India and Sahara Airlines (now Jetlite) figure among tax defaulters apart from Sahara India Financial Corporation Ltd.

Besides, corporates which owe taxes to the government are Coca Cola India (Rs 600 crore), Baron International (Rs 589 crore), Oracle Corporation (Rs 558 crore), Rolex Holding Ltd (Rs 558 crore), Aaditya Luxury Hotels (564 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs 176 crore).

Nokia, Daewoo Motors, Bunge India Ltd, Tata Industries, Satyam Computers and IBM Pvt Ltd are other companies which have been named on the list.

The Minister said that these tax demands also include those which are difficult to recover for various reasons like demands notified under Special Court, inadequate assets and companies under litigation.

However, among special measures being taken by the government to expedite recovery of default taxes includes monitoring of the recovery of amount in large cases by a Task Force. "Invariably arrear demand above Rs 25 crore is monitored by CBDT and between 10 crore and 25 crore by CCIT/DIT (Recovery)," the Minister said.