Jagan's tax assessments still on: Senior IT official

The Income Tax department is still in the process of assessing assets and income of Kadapa Member of Parliament Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and the group of companies owned by him as well as that of former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, a senior official said in Hyderabad on Friday.

"Assessments have been completed in some years, while in other years, they are under progress. Assessees have right to go in for appeal. Some cases are under dispute and they  are in appeal before the IT Appellate Authority. Some demands made by the the IT department is pending, while they have made payments for some demand notices," Andhra Pradesh Region's Income Tax Chief Commissioner J K Hota told reporters.

He was reacting to a query whether the IT department had found any tax 'default' by Jagan and Janardhan Reddy. The IT department which had sent show-cause and demand notices for Rs 122 crore to Jagathi Publications, owned by Jagan in March last year, began investigating his wealth

when he reportedly deposited an advance tax of Rs 84 crore for April-September for 2010-11, which was a huge amount compared to the previous two years when his tax outgo was Rs 2.92 lakh for 2008-09 and Rs 6.72 crore for 2009-10.

Declining to give details of the pending demand, Hota said, "Assement is a continous process. There are group of cases and it includes around 13 files of various companies."

For speedy receipt of income tax returns from taxpayers during the last week of July, the IT department here  arranged 12 special counters for verification of preliminary details like PAN among others, besides existing counters of the Aayakar Seva Kendra, Hota said.

The number of returns received during the last week of July last year were 1,17,996 and this year they expected 1.4 lakh returns in Hyderabad alone.

Jaganmohan Reddy was arrested on corruption charges by the Central Bureau of Investigation in May this year and is presently in the Chanchalguda jail here. He is accused of misusing the official position of his father, the late Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, to favour various companies.