Talwalkers owner arrested for allegedly evading Service Tax

Talwalkers owner arrested for allegedly evading Service Tax

With the end of 2013 the government had issued a warning to all service tax evaders or with holder to pay all their dues within days. Failing which stern action will be taken against defaulters.arrest

This may come as a surprise but out of the 17 lakh registered assesses under Service Tax, only seven lakh are filing returns.

Pertaining to this fact an evasion of service tax for Rs 50 lakh and above had been made a cognizable offence after the budget of 2013.

It seems that nobody had taken the warning seriously. However this time the government was serious about the warning. Within a fortnight of the new year Rohit Talwalkar, Director of Talwalkars Fitness Solution Private Limited has been arrested for evading service tax payment of Rs 3 crore since September 2008.

After his arrest yesterday, a local court today remanded him to judicial custody till January 29.

The famous Talwalkars Gym is in existence since 1932 and is frequented by Bollywood and television personalities, was engaged in providing health and fitness service in 12 cities like Mumbai, Nasik, Panvel, Ahmedabad etc.

They have been collecting service tax as part of their charges but did not remit to the department since September 2008.

According to officials, TFSPL filed a declaration under Voluntary Compliance Encouragement (VCES) scheme, introduced by the government under which they had to pay 50 per cent of the liability before December 31, 2013.

However they did not comply with the requisites under the scheme.

However they did not comply with the requisites under the scheme,” said a source.

The action taken by the department is in line with government policy, whereby government had announced VCES Scheme to pay all dues, but in spite of the said scheme, the tax payers are not coming clean.

Here are some other articles about arrest due to Service tax evasion:

Service Tax Department has started arresting tax defaulters

Failing to deposit service tax may attract arrest and imprisonment upto seven years

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