Income Tax Department searches the premises of Embassy Group

Sources said the Income Tax Department is conducting massive searches at several locations of real estate firm Embassy Group, including its Bengaluru, Gurugram and Mumbai offices, to check alleged tax evasion.

The residences of key officials of the embassy group are also being searched.

“Around five sets of searches are being conducted by the tax authorities on different business groups in different sectors like real estate, liquor and textiles. The embassy is one of the group entities,” said an official.

“This is a routine income tax enquiry – Embassy Group has always acted and will continue to function in accordance with the provisions of all applicable laws and regulations while maintaining the highest standards of corporate governance. We have extended our full compliance to the relevant authorities. We would like to assure our stakeholders that business is continuing as usual,” Embassy Group said in a statement.

The news hit the shares of Embassy Office Parks REIT, which on Wednesday closed at Rs 390.71, down 0.76% from its previous closing price on BSE.

Equipped with data analytics, the IT department has undertaken a number of search and survey tasks in recent months.

On March 23, Income Tax officials searched around 40 premises of the country’s largest two-wheeler maker. Hero Motocorp As part of a tax evasion investigation against the firm.

Even though such search action generates Rs 5,000-6,000 crore in tax revenue annually, it has a deterrent effect on other taxpayers, leading to increased compliance.