Wazalwar Driving School has been fined Rs 52 lakh including penalty while Desai Driving School has been fined Rs 24.30 lakh including penalty
Nagpur: The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) Nagpur unit has slapped two driving schools in Nagpur with fines amounting to lakhs of rupees for evading Service Tax.
The two driving schools are M/s Wazalwar Driving School Pvt Ltd at Shivaji Nagar, M/s Desai Driving School at Manish Nagar. Wazalwar has been fined Rs 52 lakh including Service Tax of Rs 26 lakh and penalty of the same amount. Similarly, Desai Driving School has been fined Rs 24.30 lakh including Rs 12.15 lakh Service Tax and an equal amount as penalty.
Notably, the officers of DGGI Nagpur unit, following a tip off, had carried out the search operations at the offices of M/s Wazalwar Driving School Pvt Ltd at Shivaji Nagar, and M/s Desai Driving School at Manish Nagar in March this year. As per the officials, these two entities despite providing driving lessons (that is considered a taxable service) to their students for almost 20 years didn’t register nor did they continue their registration with the Service Tax or under GST.
During their investigation, the DGGI also observed that only a few of the receipts were being accounted for whereas majority transactions were carried out in cash to evade taxes. On preliminary inquiries, including analysis of the Kaccha receipts and registers recovered and seized during the search operations, it was estimated that taxable value of over Rs. 10 crore has been suppressed by these entities in just the last 5 years, involving Service Tax and GST of approximate Rs. 1.86 crore.
