IT dept grills bizman for holding unreported $5-bn bonds

The tax sleuths are hot on the trail of Tamil Nadu businessman TM Ramalingam following the recovery of bonds worth USD 5 billion from his premises at Coimbatore on New Year's eve, reports Swathi Narayanan of CNBC-TV18.  

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The businessman was grilled from 10:30 am today at Chennai. S. Murali Mohan, additional director, Income Tax said that an extensive probe was being conducted, he also added that the papers recovered are not US treasury bonds but international bills of exchange. The base value of each bill of exchange is mentioned to be at USD 1 billion and there are five such papers issued by the US Treasury Department.

Mohan told reporters that the businessman was giving different versions on how he got hold of the bonds. "We are verifying the genuineness of the international bills of exchange and once we get the final confirmation we will give the details. As of now, he claims that he got the bonds in exchange from a Brazil-based person. We are verifying the truth in that statement too", he said.

Mohan added that the IT department had accessed records of different agencies for verifying the veracity of the bonds. "So far we have not received any confirmation from any agencies, but would get it probably by next week", he said.

If the bonds are not fake, then Ramalingam faces serious tax penalties, especially as he has not filed income tax returns for the last four years. "He has not been filing income tax returns for the last four years, which is against the law of the land. And if he really holds this wealth and don't file anything, then it is more unlawful," the income tax official said.

No properties have yet been seized by the IT department, but Mohan points out that besides the "international bills of exchange" that had been recovered," tax sleuths had recovered some fixed deposits from Ramalingam's bank locker.

During questioning, Ramalingam told tax officials that he also holds bills in exchange of some gold bonds that he owned for a long time.

Mohan adds that Ramalingam does not run any overseas trading business and it was thus it is more surprising as to how he got his hands on the bills. The IT department is verifying the details.