Actor Sonu Sood, whose properties were raided by the Income-tax department recently, evaded more than Rs. 20 crore tax, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said. The actor also violated the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by raising Rs 2.1 crore from overseas donors, CBDT added.
According to the tax department, the actor used his NGO — Sood Charity Foundation — to collect donations to the tune of Rs. 18.94 crore since 2020. But the NGO spent only Rs. 1.9 crore towards various relief works. The remaining Rs. 17 crore was found lying unutilised in the bank account of the Foundation.
The tax department claimed that Sood used to route his unaccounted income in the form of bogus unsecured loans from many bogus entities. Investigations have revealed 20 such entries. There have also been instances where professional receipts have been camouflaged as loans in the books of accounts for the purpose of evasion of tax, a CBDT statement read.
Earlier, I-T sleuths had conducted a search and seizure operation at various premises of the actor in Bombay and a Lucknow-based real estate development firm with which Sood has links. A total of 28 properties spread over Bombay, Lucknow, Kanpur, Jaipur, Delhi and Gurgaon were covered in the search operation. The search operations at the premises of the Lucknow-based firm unearthed incriminating evidence pertaining to tax evasion and irregularities in the books of account, the CBDT added.
The search revealed that Sonu Sood was allegedly involved in bogus billing of sub-contracting expenses and siphoning of funds. The tax department recovered evidence of such bogus contracts worth Rs. 65 crore, it said. It added that the Lucknow group had entered into a dubious circular transaction to the tune of Rs. 175 crore with an infrastructure company based in Jaipur.
