Tax officials set their sight on pre-launch developers

The Income-Tax department set its sights on some Hyderabad-based realtors. Especially the raids were conducted on the offices and premises of the developers who have nexus with the BRS MLAs or with their family members. The IT officials carried out the raids only after ascertaining the business deals with the political leaders or their families.

In a recent development, the IT sleuths conducted raids on several offices, including that of the Googee Properties in Dilsukhnagar, Kothapeta, Adibhatla Nagar (Wonder city) and Mangal Palli (Royal City), Adibhatla (Dollar city), Yacharam (Pharma City) and Yadadri (Pearl City). The raids were also carried out on the premises of affiliated companies of Googee Properties like Vihanga Infra and so on. Searches were carried out in the offices of MD of Googee Properties and CEO Shaik Akbar and that of the premises of the directors of the company.

The IT officials have focused their attention on the areas and major housing and commercial ventures where the land price is very high. The areas include LB Nagar Kukatpalli, Serilingampalli, Maheshwaram, Rajendra Nagar constituencies. In fact, it was revealed that the lands belonging to realty companies have been under the control of some ruling party leaders and their close aides. In this backdrop, the authorities are looking into the possible tax evasion, nexus between realtors and political leaders and such other aspects. It may be recalled that the raids were carried out on some real estate companies even in the first week of February.

A close look at the offices where the raids indicate that these firms have had the record of selling plots and flats in pre-launch events. The IT officials conducted the raids knowing well that the firms collected money from buyers during the past two or three years. The realtors like Bhuvana Teja, RJ Group, Yoshita Infra, Parijata Developers, AV Constructions and CNN Ventures and some other companies allegedly sold the plots and flats in pre-launch events. Therefore, these firms are apparently on the radar of the IT officials.