Smokescreen’s Off: Sandalwood I-T Raids Yield Rs 109 Crore Unaccounted Income From Top Actors, Producers 

The last week has been rather controversial in Karnataka as superstars and producers have been raided by the Income Tax Department.

An official statement from the Directorate of Income Tax (Investigation), Karnataka & Goa, has said that the raids have “yielded an admission of Rs 109 crore of unaccounted income”.

Deccan Chronicle cited an excerpt from the statement which read, “There are many issues on which evidence has been found but no admission was made. The detection of concealed income will be a much higher figure.”

The raids began on 3 January (Thursday) and went on for the next couple of days. Over 20 places that belonged to Dr. Shivarajkumar, Puneeth Rajkumar, Yash, Sudeep, Rockline Venkatesh, Jayanna and C R Manohar were raided in Bengaluru.

Undisclosed assets worth Rs 11 crore have been seized. This includes Rs 2.85 crore cash and 25.3 kg gold.

The statement further read, “The searches have resulted in unearthing of suppression of income from film production, distribution and exhibition as well as evidence of cash expenditure in films. In particular, evidence of unaccounted theatre collections in cash and consequential evasion of taxes has been found.”

“We have also found evidence of unaccounted professional receipts by film artists and cash investments in property and jewellery through unaccounted income. There is enough evidence of suppression of income from the sale of audio, visual and satellite rights,” Deccan Chronicle reported.