Tata Sons Asked To Pay Over Rs 1500 Crore In GST Dues

Government’s agency for checking GST evasion on Tuesday asked Tata Sons to pay Rs 1,524 crore as dues, CNBC TV18 reported citing unidentified sources. The holding company of the Tata Group has been asked by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) to pay 18 percent GST on payment of $1.17 billion to Japanese telecom firm NTT Docomo, the report added.

In 2018, the company settled a 3-year-old dispute with Japanese firm, allowing it to make exit its 26.5 per cent stake in telecom operator Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL). In February 2019, Mumbai branch of DGCI had booked a case after detailed probe.

The claims of DGCI would be contested by Tata Sons, CNBC TV18 also reported citing unidentified sources.

Meanwhile, a few days back, Tata Starbucks, the equal joint venture between Tata and global coffee chain Starbucks, was also found guilty of profiteering by the GST investigative arm to the tune of Rs 4.51 crore for not cutting down prices of coffee despite a GST rate cut.

The base price of one of the coffee variants was increased by Tata Starbucks after the GST Council reduced tax rates on restaurants to 5 per cent to 18 per cent with effect from November 15, 2017. This resulted in the retail sale price of the coffee variant remaining same before and after GST rate cut.

In February, restaurant chain Jubilant FoodWorks which is the operator of Dominos Pizza in India was found guilty by NAA of not passing GST benefits on the sale to on a few of its products to the customers.―Financial Express