Satyam Group & Rajus owe govt Rs 541 cr in income tax

“As of now, the outstanding demand pending for recovery in the entire group is Rs 541 crore,” Minister of State for Finance S S  Palanimanickam told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. Out of the total dues, Satyam Computer, which has now been re-branded as Mahindra Satyam, alone owes a hefty Rs 532 crore to the Income Tax department. Maytas Group promoted by the two sons of Raju, owes Rs 2.8 crore. Other than that, Ramalinga Raju and his other relatives need to pay about Rs 29 lakh, Palanimanickam said.

Case re-opened
Moreover, other companies of the Satyam and Maytas groups need to pay another Rs 5.38 crore, he added. To a query on whether the Income Tax authorities have re-opened the Income Tax assessment in respect of Raju and all other companies in which he was associated along with Satyam Computer, Palanimanickam said the Income Tax assessment cases had been re-opened.

All the cases in which assessment have been re-opened are pending to be finalised by December 31, 2009, he said. The Income Tax department is collecting information for finalising the pending assessment. “The position regarding the amount of tax leviable in such cases can be quantified only on the completion of assessments, which would be finalised by December 31,” Palanimanickam said. Significantly the Minister said that the Income Tax Department might  conduct special audit of the firms if required. “As the assessments are still open, the decision to conduct special audit will be taken, if required, on the basis of examination of information in these pending cases,” Palanimanickam said.