AHMEDABAD: Finance minister Arun Jaitley recently revealed the names of India’s top 20 income tax defaulters including three from Gujarat. Out of the 67 tax evaders, whose names have been made public by the I-T department in the past one year, Gujarat with 24 evaders tops the list of states with highest number of defaulters.Cumulatively , these 24 individuals and entities have not paid tax to the tune of Rs 576.8 crore. Gujarat is followed by Maharashtra and Telangana with 15 defaulters each. As part of its `Name and Shame’ policy, I-T department has released three separate list of 67 defaulters across India, who have evaded tax of more than Rs 3200 crore between assessment year 1980-81and 2013-14.

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The individuals and entities who have defaulted on taxes from Gujarat are into businesses such as capital gains, share trading, and textile, angadia and film distribution, jewllery and manufacturing among others.

The three defaulters from the state to figure in the top 20 list, tabled in Lok Sabha by FM Jaitley , include two firms-Blue Information Pvt Ltd and Liverpool Retail India Ltdas well as an individual-Praful M Akhani. Together, these three have tax arrears of Rs 136.38 crore.Out of total 24 from Gujarat, 17 belong to Ahmedabad and the remaining are from Surat, Rajkot and Gandhidham.As many as 11 defaulters have evaded tax of over Rs 25 crore each.

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The lists of tax defaulters have been compiled by the Income Tax department and issued by the Finance Ministry carry names of the evaders, their last known addresses, PAN numbers, and amount of arrears and last known source of income. According to a senior IT official in Ahmedabad, till last year the department was asked to compile the names of defaulters who had evaded taxes of more than Rs 10 crore. “Now, we are gathering names of defaulters who have evaded taxes of more than Rs 1crore and have not paid even after several reminders,” added IT official.http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Highest-number-of-income-tax-defaulters-in-Guj-owe-Rs-576-crore/articleshow/51625071.cms?from=mdr