200 Hyderabad techies caught in income tax refund scam
What's the story
Investigators from Hyderabad's Central Crime Station (CCS) have busted at least 200 IT employees for faking disability and chronic illness of family members to claim income tax refunds fraudulently. The CCS sleuths have filed a chargesheet against two income tax practitioners, N Srikanth Goud, 43, and Mohammed Khaleel, 34. The I-T department suffered a loss of Rs 1.36 crore from the case.
Modus operandi
How the scam worked
A refund can be claimed on medical grounds as per Section 80 D and 80 DD of the Income Tax Act. Both Goud and Khaleel had approached tech employees and offered to process their tax claims. They told their clients to state that their family members are patients of chronic illness, helping each of them get rebates between Rs. 50,000 to one lakh.
Details
Several other tax practitioners could be engaging in similar fraud
Goud and Khaleel took a 10% commission from each of their clients. The two have been charged under section 420 IPC (cheating) and 406 IPC (criminal breach of trust). Out of the 200 tech employees who fraudulently claimed tax rebates, 50 belong to the company Polaris Hyderabad. Police said there could several other income tax practitioners across the city, engaging in such a fraud.