Hyderabad: As a part of its site inspection drive, a team of officials from the Registrar of Companies (RoC) on Friday continued search operations at Ashoknagar in the city, where two prominent corporate groups have a presence. One group relocated to AP, while another group remains there. The officials identified 515 companies at six locations. After completing the ongoing inspection at these six locations, the RoC will repeat the drive after three months.
An official from the RoC said that there is no legal bar on companies having the same address. “Companies might have presence at several places. The criterion for the site inspection is more than 25 companies having a single address. The common address is only one of the triggers to list companies. The ongoing site inspections are part of our drive to locate companies not complying with corporate laws. After the searches, we will submit our report to the ministry of finance.”
The income-tax (I-T) and GST departments are also expected to conduct searches at an appropriate time as the present searches are based on data shared among these central tax authorities and the RoC.
A source in the I-T department confirmed the possibility of a search operation as a follow up to the RoC drive.
“During the past one year, we searched and seized documents and property from 100 companies in Hyderabad. After scrutiny, we issued a demand order to cough up tax on undisclosed income. But, majority of these companies approached the court. However, the I-T department has a provision whereby it can collect 50 per cent of the tax due by attaching property and taking other measures. Since the Centre is keen on exposing shell companies, I-T searches are expected in the near future,” said the sources.
GST officials said that they have already prepared a list and may commence inspection any time as several irregularities have been found in returns. Most of the GST returns are not matching with I-T returns. GST Hyderabad zone has listed such assessees and served 45,000 notices. But only 12,000 responded to the notices.
