Directorate of Intelligence & Investigation-Inland Revenue (I&I-IR), Karachi has been dilatory since April 2015 to register a tax evasion case against a leading soap importer, due to external pressure; it was learnt here on Thursday. According to sources, the Directorate had taken a stern action against leading soap importer on April 9, 2015 on a tip-off, which revealed that they were involved in myriad imports of soaps in the name of fake companies. They said that the Directorate after verifying the veracity of the information found the involvement of a company as a commercial importer of different brands of soaps.
Moreover, sources said that staff of Directorate conducted raids at Jodia Bazar and I.I Chundrigar areas under section 38 of Sales Tax Act of 1990 but no office was found at Jodia Bazaar while team observed that the company was running its illicit activities with different name at its I.I Chundrigar office.
Sources further said that I&I team had taken 24 file covers, CPUs and fake invoices from the office for a forensic examination, which led to the recovery of records of eight accounts of different banks. Sources said that the company, which showed a nine-digit sales during first three months of current calendar year, had not paid a single penny as sales tax. They said that that company declared its sales to a fake business unit being run by one of the top 100 taxpayers of the country.
Furthermore, sources said that the staff of Directorate, dealing the case, had established an incident report against the company for a further legal action. However, the Directorate instead of registering a tax fraud case against the said company said to have released all seized records and equipment under external pressure and remained dilatory to pursue the case further. When contacted, Directorate officials, nobody was available for comments.