Taxmen continue raids on four hotels for 2nd day

On Thursday raids were held at 32 places belonging to noted chain of restaurants like Saravana Bhavan, Anajappar, Grand Sweets and Hot Breads in connection with suspected tax evasion.

Searches are over in 10 places, but the process is going on in 22 other places, a senior Income Tax officers said on Friday.

Income Tax officers hinted that there is a suspicion of tax evasion by suppression of income by these groups through various means, including siphoning off and diverting fund. Hence, the department decided to conduct searches and obtain further evidence. Income Tax officers noted that they have seized documents of suspicious money transfers. Only after scrutinising the documents, we can estimate the evasion, a senior I-T officer said.

The raid was focussing on these restaurants’ overseas operations. Hot Breads M Mahadevan, had been handling most of the overseas franchises of other three chain of restaurants too.

Enforcement Directorate (ED) is also keenly watching the overseas operations of these firms to make sure there is no money laundering. ED officers had not ruled out the possibility of registering cases against these firms, if the Income Tax raids reveal any kind of overseas money laundering.