- Bribe Fighter
- 12 years ago
- 4058 views
Bribe Demanded for error in filing taxes
We received a hand written letter from the Service Tax Department asking us to present our company financials for scrutiny. Our company accountant visited the office and handed over the documents requested for. There they asked for some more documents and the same were also provided. They again called the accountant and asked her to send me to meet them, however we again sent our lady accountant again. She was shouted at and insulted for not getting me along. Then the Superintendent - Mr. Meena asked her to meet the Inspector Mr. Anuj Choudhary, who would explain the case to her. Mr. Chaudhary explained to our accountant that there has been a short payment of tax to the tune of about Rs. 25,000/- in one of the quarters 2 yrs back. The inspector said that the case can be settled else there would be a penalty to the tune of about Rs. 18 lacs. This penalty would be charged by withdrawing benefits of all cenvat credit and abatement claimed by our company. To this our accountant asked him how could the settlement be arrived at and Mr. Chaudhary showed her a figure of 150000 on the calculator and asked her to send me to settle the deal.
We went and reported the case to CBI. They gave me a recording device and asked me to go and meet the officials. This done I went to the Service Tax officials and over a meeting that lasted about an hour the officials demanded a bribe of 1.5 lacs, which was negotiated down to Rs. 1 lac. Then on the 4th of Jan I went with the CBI team in disguise and made the payment. All of this was recorded and the officials were caught red handed. Wonderful END? No, thats when the legal system steps in. The court proceedings have started. The accused have hired a very smart team of lawyers. The accused are using threats and inducements to have the witnesses (self and accountant change statement). The case is being tried in a special CBI fast track court at a good speed. Yet it offers the accused enough time to try and influence the witnesses to change statement. The accountant has already been offered 4 lacs. RTI applications have been filed against me and my company in the taxation department to fix me and corner me to change statement. There is just no witness protection programme. It was quite a sight in the court room to see the public prosecutor Vs 6-7 very smartly turned out lawyers there to defend the accused. Going through it one realises why CBI has such a poor conviction rate. In an honest country like Singapore, the accused would have been convicted in a week-10 days at most.
If the systems don't change - Long live corruption in India.