70,000 crore tax scam of biryani chain
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Jagran News Network, New Delhi. The Income Tax investigation related to three famous biryani chains (restaurants) of Hyderabad has exposed a case of alleged billing manipulation worth up to Rs 70 thousand crore in the restaurant industry across the country.
According to sources, the investigation has indicated systematic deletion and modification of sales records, thereby reducing the tax liability by under-reporting the turnover. It is believed that high profile tax evasion would hardly have been detected without Artificial Intelligence (AI) and high-powered forensic technology.
Investigation of 60 terabyte data
Officials have closely examined about 60 terabytes of digital data and UPI transactions. About 1.7 lakh restaurants across the country came under the purview of this investigation. According to initial estimates, earnings worth about Rs 70,000 crore have been hidden since 2019-20. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana alone this figure is more than Rs 5,000 crore.
Secret button of bulk delete in the software
Investigation revealed that these restaurants were using a special type of billing software. This software had a 'bulk delete' feature, with the help of which shopkeepers could delete the sales records of an entire month at once. It has also come to light that sales records were hidden through thousands of PAN cards. At present the Income Tax Department is trying to recover the deleted data.
AI helped link GST numbers to restaurants using publicly available information instead of waiting for records from official channels.
Also read- Many biryani restaurants of Hyderabad on the radar of IT, strings connected to 5 states in tax evasion of Rs 70 thousand crores
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