I-T Department Launches Pan-India Survey in 70 Restaurants Across 45 Cities Over Suspected Hidden Sales:

I-T Department Launches Pan-India Survey in 70 Restaurants Across 45 Cities Over Suspected Hidden Sales After uncovering the large-scale suppression of sales at biryani restaurants in Hyderabad and Telangana, the Income Tax Department has expanded its investigation by launching a pan-India survey of around 70 restaurants in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, etc.

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Biryani Billing Scam: I-T Dept Detects Rs 70,000 Crore Hidden Sales Across India

Multiple restaurants across Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, along with other states, were found to be hiding their sales worth over Rs 70,000 crore since 2019-20. Now the investigation wing of the income tax department has launched the survey in 70 restaurants across 45 cities, as these restaurants are also suspected to be involved in sales suppression by manipulating their billing software. The survey was followed by the directions of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) as per Section 133A of the Income Tax Act. Here are the cities covered under the survey:

• Andhra Pradesh: Rajahmundry, Nellore and Visakhapatnam
• Maharashtra: Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Amravati
• Haryana: Gurugram, Samalkha
• Uttar Pradesh: Noida, Hapur, Ghaziabad and Lucknow
• Tamil Nadu: Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai
• Gujarat: Godhra, Dahod, Rajkot and Ahmedabad in Gujarat
• Chhattisgarh: Korba
• Himachal Pradesh: Shimla
• Karnataka: Bengaluru
• Madhya Pradesh: Indore and Bhopal
• Odisha: Cuttack and Bhubaneswar
• Rajasthan: Jaipur and Ajmer
• Kerala: Malappuram and Kozhikode
• Punjab: Jalandhar, Amritsar and Ludhiana
• West Bengal: Kolkata and Siliguri
• Assam: Guwahati
• Bihar: Patna and Saran
• Jharkhand: Koderma

The investigation initially began from biryani restaurants in Hyderabad. In a detailed survey in Telangana, where around 40 restaurants were investigated, the officials estimated tax evasion of around 500 crore. The Income Tax Department examined around 60 terabytes of transactional data from pan-India billing software used by over one lakh restaurants.

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IT Dept Conducts Statewide Raids on Rajasthan’s Kanha Restaurant Group Over Alleged Tax Evasion

The earlier investigation revealed that many restaurants allegedly deleted the cash transactions from their software at the end of the month to show a reduced income and avoid income tax and GST. Only a portion of cash transactions was kept to avoid suspicion. Additionally, some restaurants allegedly deleted several invoices for specific date ranges. While some entities underreported their sales in the income tax returns. Investigators used AI tools to study data from about 1.77 lakh restaurant IDs and connected their GST and PAN details using information available online.