Ahmedabad: Recent income-tax raids on four city-based groups have revealed widespread irregularities in Ahmedabad’s real estate sector. I-T officials have unearthed significant undisclosed income, shedding light on dubious practices involving real estate transactions.
I-T detectives discovered that the raided real estate groups were allowing brokers to acquire lands from farmers, often to facilitate cash transactions. These property consultants would handle the initial dealings, while the realtors only stepped in during the documentation phase. The officials found that these practices aimed to evade tax and manage unaccounted cash.
On April 28, approximately 200 I-T detectives conducted search and survey operations across 60 premises of the four city-based groups. Three of these groups are prominent realtors, while the fourth includes a well-known city jeweler as a key promoter. The raids yielded Rs 6 crore in black money disclosures from a single broker, who also had Rs 20 lakh in cash. The total disclosures from this operation have reached Rs 66 crore, with more expected as the investigation continues. The premises of the fourth group remain sealed, as the promoters are currently on a trip to Singapore.
In the first raid of the current financial year, I-T officials seized Rs 8.3 crore in cash from realtors and property consultants. During the search at the jeweler's premises, they found a discrepancy of Rs 60 lakh between the stock officially declared and that displayed at the shop. The department is now examining various methods used by realtors to evade taxes and launder black money.
City realtors acknowledged that employing brokers in land deals with farmers is a common practice. However, these brokers are now increasingly involved in questionable transactions. "A builder would book a land parcel at the prevailing rate with token money given through brokers. The brokers would keep the farmers in suspense, and the deal would progress based on the builder's cash flow," an official stated.
The department had previously found that the searched realtors used cheque transactions to document cash payments made by buyers for properties.