Leonia resorts MD sent to for evading GST

Hyderabad: Leonia resorts chairman and managing director G.S. Chakravarthi Raju,  was arrested for not cooperating in the investigation pertaining to him evading Goods and service tax to the tune of Rs 13.81 crore. The CMD has been sent on judicial remand till January 18, 2018.

The Director-General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), found that the resort was collecting GST from its customers, guests and retaining it with them, besides diverting the tax amounts for private purposes. Since July 2017, the management of Leonia Meridian Infrastructure projects has not been paying tax.

“The GST law stipulates that all the amounts representing GST collected from service recipients have to be mandatorily credited into the government account and that periodical returns be filed by a specific date, every month. However, the management of Leonia chose not to pay the tax and have not filed any returns, with a deliberate intention to evade GST. The management of the resort has a dubious history of not paying applicable service tax in the past too and several notices were issued to them by the Service Tax Department,” the Director General of GST (intelligence) said.

Collecting GST and failing to pay to the government, beyond a period of 3 months from the date on which such payment becomes due, where the amount of tax involved is more than '5 crore, is one of the gravest forms of offences, according to the norm. Considering their very nature, such offences have been treated as cognisable and non-bailable offences and any person committing them can be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years and with fine.

“During the course of the investigation, the CMD admitted that GST was collected and not paid to the government and discharged the part liability of '2.27 crore only. Five bank accounts connected to the business of the said resort have been provisionally attached in the interest of government revenue,”  GST authorities said.