14 resorts near Gir evaded Rs 12 crore in taxes

AHMEDABAD: After a couple of raids at hotel and resort booking agents’ offices, officials of state goods and services tax (SGST) department recently unearthed tax evasion of Rs 12 crore from across resorts at Sasan Gir. While no fake billing is involved, lack of tax compliance is seen among most of these resorts. Some Rs 2.14 crore is recovered, according to department officials.
Raids were conducted across some 25 locations including hotel booking agents as well as premises of some 17 resorts in Sasan Gir.
During the investigation it came to the fore that these resorts registered lower tariffs than what were actually charged, in their bill books and taxation documents. As a consequence, a huge sum of tax was evaded. Sources said that many a time, hoteliers and resort owners used to register their rooms under a lower tax slab to evade taxes.
“A number of services which were offered to guests were not registered on bill books. Moreover, across some of the resorts, there was misinterpretation of the composition scheme as well to evade taxes,” said a senior tax department official.
SGST officials have already seized various documents from the concerned resorts to probe possibilities of further evasion.
In the recent past, metal trading firms, metal scrap traders, coaching classes, ceramic traders and cumin traders have been under the scanner of the SGST department for tax evasion.