Mumbai
The Income Tax department has used its discretion to recover Rs74 crore from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's exchequer after the civic body failed to respond to its tax notices. The BMC apparently has not deposited some money collected as tax deducted at source (TDS) with the I-T.
Updated : May 07, 2015, 07:00 AM IST
The Income Tax department has used its discretion to recover Rs74 crore from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's exchequer after the civic body failed to respond to its tax notices. The BMC apparently has not deposited some money collected as tax deducted at source (TDS) with the I-T.
The recovered amount pertains to TDS on salaries of BMC staffers, payments to its contractors, and the cumulative interest on them.
This came to light during a meeting of the civic standing committee on Wednesday when the corporation mooted a proposal to appoint a firm at the cost of Rs27 lakh to study the punitive action by I-T and assess the exact tax liability.
Sources said the I-T sleuths recovered the tax dues by sending demand notices to a bank that manages BMC's funds.
Standing committee members, however, sent the proposal back to civic administration, asking it to first investigate on the I-T department's decision to deduct the amount from the civic exchequer.
Additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Deshmukh, who was representing the civic administration at the meeting, said the tax dues have been accumulated from 2007-2008. The I-T started sending notices to the civic body from the last year. So far, its has sent three notices.
BJP group leader at the BMC Manoj Kotak said, "It is a case of negligence on the part of the civic administration that has caused a huge loss to the civic exchequer. This comes at a time when the BMC is already reeling under a financial crisis."
Samajwadi Party group leader at the BMC Rais Shaikh said civic officials should set up a full-fledged inquiry to fix responsibility. "It is criminal not to pay the tax dues for such a long time that has added up to this amount. It also speaks poorly of the BMC's SAP system."
Deshmukh told the committee members the matter would be investigated and a detailed report would be presented in the next standing committee meeting.