Thiruvananthapuram: The secretary to the Taxes Department of the Kerala Government and the GST Commissionerate will look into the allegation of unpaid tax raised by Mathew Kuzhalnadan, MLA, against T Veena, who is the daughter of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and her Bengaluru-based firm, Exalogic Solutions.
The Congress legislator had asked whether the due Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the Rs 1.72 crore received by Veena and her firm from Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) was remitted. The MLA had sent an email to Finance Minister K N Balagopal in this regard the other day.
In his complaint, the Muvattupuzha MLA urged the minister to recover the tax arrears to be paid by the chief minister’s daughter on a sum of Rs 1.72 crore her company Exalogic received from another firm.
Kuzhalnadan also challenged the CPM, which had defended Veena after a controversy broke out over the payments received by her, to clarify if she had paid the Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) on the amount received from CMRL. He said the ruling party will have to admit that the payment was nothing but political funding if they cannot produce evidence of tax payments.
"Her (Veena) IT firm received more money from the private mineral company. According to documents accessed by me, her company suffered a loss of more than Rs 63 lakh since 2014. According to documents, she invested around Rs 78 lakh to maintain her company," Kuzhalnadan alleged. He alleged that the cash received by Veena's firm was "political funding".
Meanwhile, CPM leader A K Balan challenged Kuzhalnadan to approach the court against Veena. He claimed that the Congress MLA can't go even into the courtyard of the court with such a fake complaint. The former minister also asked Kuzhalnadan whether he will end his political life and tender an apology if his allegations of tax evasion against the CM's daughter proved wrong.
As per the documents seized by Income Tax authorities from the CMRL, Veena had received Rs 55 lakhs and her company, Rs 1.17 crore from 2017-18 to 2019-20.
As per the GST norms, an 18 per cent Integrated GST (IGST) was to be paid for services. Hence a total of Rs 30.95 lakh was to be paid as the IGST of Rs 1.72 crore, the total amount received by both Veena and the Exalogic Solutions.
Kuzhalnadan demanded an inquiry into the matter after the CPM had clarified that the amount had been the remuneration for the service rendered by Veena and her company.
Since the company that rendered the service and the company that received the service are located in two different states, the dividend of the IGST recovered from the amount are to be shared by both Kerala and Karnataka. Since Veena’s company was located in Karnataka the IGST had to be remitted there and what remains to be known is whether Kerala has received the State’s share in this regard.
Experts point out that had CMRL paid the amount to Veena as the remuneration for the service, the CMRL should have received an invoice from them and the same must be submitted to the Kerala GST Department by the CMRL along with their GST return. In that case, it will not be a difficult task to confirm whether IGST has been remitted on the amount.
According to Dr Kuzhalanadan, in addition to the Rs 1.72 crore, Veena’s company has also received Rs 42 lakh from CMRL and in this deal, the company has paid Rs 6.48 lakh as IGST.
He has also alleged that Veena has received a sum of Rs 39 lakh from another company floated by the wife of the owner of the CMRL as a loan.
