A shocking news was out from the NTR trust saying that no service tax is collected from the trust from the past 4 years. 

Getting into the details, the trust is operating since 1997 in the city and as known the trustees of it were  Chandrababu Naidu, his wife Bhuvaneshwari, their son Lokesh and Dr. V. Jayarami Reddy. In 2009, it was rented to TDP at the cost of 10.5 lakhs per month. According to the law, the owners should collect 12.36% ( from recent amendment it was 14%) as service tax from the tenants and pay the total sum to the central excise department. But the officials said till 2014, not even a single rupee was registered as tax from the trust.

ED started inquiring on the trust after the last year elections where TDP gained huge donations and the way they spent on various programs   On the other side, the tenants said that there is no such specification of service tax separately in the agreement.

After proper scrutiny, ED found that rent amount included service tax too and then said, that they are required to pay the tax on cum value @ 10.3%. The total pending tax now amounted to 70 lakhs which the officials issued a notice regarding      this. The tenants who came to know that if the pending tax exceeds 50 lakhs, then a non bailable warrant will be issued on them, immediately paid 30 lakhs and kept silent.

Regarding this, the tax officials awaited for a proper response for good number of days and again issued a notice. But as there is no such response again, now the authorities are in a plan to take hold of  all the records from them and further that may lead to criminal proceedings too.

By Phani