Mina Impex, Chokhani Enterprises, Golden Earth Securities and Guru Investment were penalized for robbing revenue from the state treasury.
An IRD source informed myrepublica.com that it recouped VAT and slapped a fine of Rs 28.65 million and additional tax and fine of Rs 7.5 million to Mina Impex for evading VAT and income tax. Chokhani Enterprises was slapped with a fine of Rs 5.7 million in VAT and Rs 2 million in income tax.
“A decision to this effect taken was taken on Monday, after our investigation proved that the four firms were playing foul,” said the source.
Likewise, the department´s investigation had found Golden Earth Securities of evading VAT of Rs 1.99 million and income tax of Rs 0.55 million. Guru Investment, too, had evaded Rs 1.86 million in VAT and Rs 0.55 million in income tax.
The department had commenced investigation against the four firms based on their business linkages with Saleways Departmental Store and Commodity and Mercantile Exchange of Nepal (COMEN) -- the two firms that were earlier found to have dodged huge volume of revenue.
IRD had previously penalized Saleways for evading Rs 110 million in VAT and COMEN of dodging Rs 5.2 million in VAT and Rs 2 million in income tax. Mina Impex and Chokhani enterprises were supplying goods to Saleways, while Golden Earth Securities and Guru Investment had business linkages with COMEN.
Likewise, the source added that the department had also started investigation against donor agencies after it found their involvement in submitting fake invoices for tax refund.
In the meantime, the department has informed that it has completed installation of Financial Information System.
“This system records all transaction details of buyers and sellers across the country. Hence, we can now instantly know the business details of all the parties registered with VAT,” said the source. He elaborated that the new system has plugged the room of revenue leakage on VAT.
The department has beefed up its investigations and market inspection in a bid to check VAT evasion in this fiscal year. Because of it, the department has presently managed to cross the VAT collection target. In the last fiscal year, it had failed to meet the target.
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