By V V Balakrishna
Published: 15th November 2015 05:22 AM
Last Updated: 15th November 2015 06:05 AM
HYDERABAD:A ‘sting operation’, planned and executed by minister for Commercial Taxes Talasani Srinivas Yadav, has exposed the deceptive ways of punters at the Hyderabad Race Club to avoid paying tax, there by helping to fatten the state exchequer by a few hundred crores.
Based on the revelations of the sting operation, the State government has decided to bring out an ordinance, making amendments to the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana area) Horse Racing and Betting Tax Regulation Act (HRBT Act). The ordinance is aimed at collecting 100 per cent betting tax from the punters at the Hyderabad Race Course.
In October this year, minister Srinivas Yadav gave some money to 60 officials of his department and instructed them to spend the money at Hyderabad Race Club, Malakpet.
Accordingly, the officials, masquerading as punters, walked into the race course and indulged in betting. Some lucky officials won, but that was not the reason why they were there.
The officials were startled to find punters evading more than 95 per cent of betting tax due to the government.
Thereafter, the commercial taxes officials raided the premises of six bookies at the Hyderabad Race Club and seized Rs 51 lakh. As the Legislative Assembly was not in session, the minister took up the matter with chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the government decided to bring out an ordinance.
The annual turnover of Hyderabad Race Club is around Rs 4,000 crore .
When a punter puts Rs 1 lakh and earns Rs 10 lakh, he has to pay a betting tax of 14.5 per cent, i.e., Rs 1.45 lakh to the government. But some punters are paying taxes nominally to show it in the IT returns. Some punters are even recording less amount to evade payment of tax.
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