Income Tax dept may delay further action against Deepak Kochhar and other individuals due to Covid

Mumbai: Deepak Kochhar, the businessman husband of former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar, is likely to be among several individuals and companies against whom the income tax department will delay further action because of the Covid-19 pandemic.The department is drawing up a list of assesses facing probe over suspected tax evasion but who will be spared of any coercive action during the pandemic period, people in the know said.In a communication to its officers, the department has sought details of cases in which courts have also stopped it from taking any coercive action against the suspects. ET has seen a copy of it.“Of the cases in the Mumbai division, the matter against Kochhar is under scrutiny. The said case will be included on the list as there has been a stay by the courts on tax collection,” an I-T official said.The official said this decision was made due to the “hard times” caused by the “unprecedented outbreak of the pandemic”.CBDT DirectiveOn May 8, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had asked the tax department not to have any communication “having adverse effect” with the assessees till it issued fresh guidelines. Notices for assessment or reassessment too should be issued only after that, it had said.In January, the tax department had written to the Enforcement Directorate, seeking details of its investigation into money laundering allegations against Chanda Kochhar and her husband. It made the request after the central agency provisionally attached certain assets of the couple claiming that those were acquired through the proceeds of crime.The department had written also to authorities in Mauritius seeking details of a Rs 50-crore investment in 2011 by Deepak Kochhar-owned NuPower Renewables in Firstland Holdings of Nishant Kanodia, as part of efforts to collect evidence against Kochhar.This, after the Supreme Court in October last year disallowed the tax department’s bid to reassess NuPower’s accounts to investigate the Firstland investment, observing that there was no new or additional material to back its claim.Several transactions between the two companies during 2010-12 are under probe over alleged quid pro quo deals linked to loans from ICICI Bank.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2N89JTK