The Income Tax department has unearthed large amounts of cash and illegal transactions by Taapsee Pannu and Anurag Kashyap after two days of searches in Mumbai and Pune. Income Tax officials have claimed that they recovered 'evidence of cash receipts by the leading actress amounting to Rs 5 crore'. The agency also claimed to have found bogus expenditure of Anurag Kashyap with tax implication of about Rs 20 crore.
Pannu had accepted around Rs 5 crore in cash. Her company is suspected to be involved in income tax evasion, according to sources. The actress' film signing amounts are under the I-T scanner as well as her endorsement deals. Some of the signing amounts amount to crores. They also believe that some data has been deleted from her phone and are seeking expert help to retrieve the same.
The Pink star recorded a statement on March 3 and later recorded a detailed statement. She is likely to be summoned by the IT officials in the coming days.
Phantom Films shareholders are also suspected of involvement in tax evasion of around Rs 600 crore. They are alleged to have carried out a stake sale and not pay income tax from the money generated from the same.
Bogus expenditure and fake bills are believed to have been created by the production house. Anurag Kashyap, one of the shareholders is also alleged to have deleted data from the phone.
According to the officials, "evidence of huge suppression of income by the leading Film Production house (Phantom films) compared to the actual box office collections has been unearthed. The company officials have not been able to explain the discrepancy of around Rs 300 crore."
Evidence of manipulation and under-valuation of share transactions of the production house has been found with tax implication of about Rs 350 crore.
The IT department carried out search and survey operations on Taapsee Pannu, Phantom Films, Reliance Entertainment, Kwan Talent Management and Exceed Entertainment for alleged tax evasion.