I-T dept identifies up to 5,000 MNCs late on tax payments

Mumbai: Income Tax Department has identified 4,000-5,000 foreign companies based in this megapolis that are not paying taxes on time, including due to tax disputes, and expects to soon recover from them dues totalling nearly Rs 8,000 crore.

With the region accounting for about one-third of the government's total tax revenue collection, the Department is "trying its best" to collect the dues from Mumbai-based foreign firms before end of this fiscal, that is March 31.

"We are trying to collect the tax due from foreign companies. In Mumbai alone, there are 4,000-5,000 foreign companies which are not paying taxes properly," principal chief commissioner of income tax and head of the Mumbai region, DS Saksena told PTI here today.

The Department has already collected Rs 23,000 crore from foreign companies so far this year and is hopeful of collecting the balance of around Rs 8,000 crore before March 31.

"We have already collected around Rs 23,000 crore from foreign companies and we are trying our best to collect the remaining Rs 8,000 crore by the fiscal-end," Saksena said on the sidelines of an Assocham function here.

These tax dues have been caused due to disputes which include profit from international transactions and tax from permanent establishments, he added.

Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan had last week said that multinationals were also responsible for tax controversies, saying their indulgence in avoidance as well as evasion results in prolonged battles.

"Occasionally there is government excess, but they are not the only ones who commit excesses," Rajan said while delivering the 13th Nani Palkhivala lecture on 'Strengthening the free enterprise' here on February 4.

"Multinational corporations complain all the time of excessive demands about excessive taxation, but it is also true that MNCs across the world tend to find tax avoidance and sometimes tax evasion as appropriate techniques and therefore, there is a constant fight between government and MNCs," Rajan had said.