Air India company caught for evading VAT for years

Chefair Air India International, a subsidiary of Air India, is one of several key companies caught by the city’s trade and taxes department for evading value-added tax for several years. The defaulter companies came under the scanner of the AAP government department after it announced it would pay cash incentives to officers responsible for tracking such tax evaders.

The “catch-and-reward” policy of the government to nab tax defaulters has cau-ght the fancy of its 300-odd VAT officers, who are repo-rtedly working overtime to ensure overdue taxes are being meticulously deposited in the administration’s treasury in the city.

The recent in line of defaulters who ended up paying all their tax dues along with interest are Chefair Air India Interna-tional, responsible for serving food to Air India flights, and Alco Brew Distillers India Private Limited. For three consecutive years, Chefair Air India Intern-ational had been collecting VAT, but did not deposit the same with the government. Though the trade and taxes department had cancelled the licence of Chefair Air in December 2013, the company had been continuing with its operations in Delhi. It was only after the department received specific intelligence input, the VAT commissioner ordered an in-depth survey of the company’s accounts on February 8.

The company finally deposited total tax due amount of Rs 3,74,66,422, including interest. The firm also restored its registration number and has started paying a monthly tax of about Rs 25 lakh to the city administration. Buoyed by the success of its officers, the department recently gave a reward amount of Rs 8,67,709 to its seven officers. The officers who were rewarded are joint commissioner Pravesh Ranjan Jha, assistant commissioner B.R. Meena, assistant VAT officers Sandeep Kumar and Ram Oraon, inspectors V.K. Mishra and M.C. Jain and stenographer S.K. Singh. While Mr Meena got the highest cash reward of Rs 1,77,864, the minimum amount of Rs 91,329 was given to Mr Singh.

Alco Distillers had been depositing less tax. A team led by joint commissioner Ranjeet Singh conducted the survey of the company on January 6. As a result of findings of the survey, the company ended up paying an amount of Rs 30.77 lakh back to the government. The company also filed its return for the second quarter for 2015-16 financial year and deposited an additional amount of Rs 1.68 crore with the government.

The tax department paid an award amount of Rs 4,33,855 to the team of its five members who cracked the case. The officers who were rewarded are joint commissioner Ranjeet Sin-gh, assistant commissioner Om Prakash, assistant VAT officers Dharmesh Kumar Jha and Ashok Kumar and inspector Ramesh Kumar. While the maximum reward amount of Rs 99, 471 was bagged by Mr Singh, the minimum amount of Rs 63,152 was awarded to Mr Ramesh Kumar.