IRD confirms another 33 firms engaged in VAT scam

KATHMANDU, NOV 19 -

The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has confirmed the involvement of another 33 firms in evading tax and has decided to slap fines of Rs 130 million on them. The IRD has confirmed that a total of 405 firms were involved tax evasion by using fake value added tax (VAT) bills and has imposed penalties totalling Rs 3.58 billion.

Until October-end, the IRD had completed investigating 365 firms and slapped tax bills of Rs 3.45 billion on them. Nearly three weeks ago, the government had made public the names of 385 firms issuing fake VAT bills, their Permanent Account Numbers (PAN) and the names of companies that used the bills issued by such

firms. The report prepared on March 4 revealed the involvement of some of the country’s

leading business houses and firms under them in the VAT scam.

The IRD had directed the Inland Revenue Offices under it to probe 518 companies suspecting them of conducting illegal transactions. The IRD is now continuing its investigation of the remaining 113 firms, and officials concerned said that it would take at least two months to finish it. “We will complete the smaller cases within the next two weeks,” said Govinda Prasad Subedi, director of the IRD.

With tax evasion becoming a big challenge for the government in collecting adequate revenue for the country’s development activities, it has accorded priority to tax compliance this year instead of expanding the tax net. At present, 19 percent of the total taxes collected by the IRD are generated through tax auditing and investigation measures. The IRD determined taxes worth Rs 8.31 billion by auditing the transactions of 915 income taxpayers and 1,642 VAT payers and investigating 886 taxpayers’ files.

Source: Kantipur