Tax Evasion
Income tax dept probe shows restaurants hid sales worth over INR 4 bln
This story was originally published at 21:36 IST on 9 March 2026
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NEW DELHI – The Income Tax Department has launched a series of nationwide verification exercises to analyse suppression of bills by restaurants to under-report income and evade taxes. The department carried out a survey on 62 restaurants across 46 cities in 22 states on Sunday, and, on a preliminary basis, found suppression of sales amounting to around INR 4.08 billion. "Investigations in this regard are underway," the Central Board of Direct Taxes said Monday.
"During the exercise, it was found that several restaurants were engaged in deletion of bulk bills and other modifications to suppress the actual sales," the department said.
According to an official release, the income tax department continues to emphasise voluntary compliance and has commenced the 'SAKSHAM NUDGE' campaign to guide and advise taxpayers to correct their filing mistakes. In the first phase, emails and messages will be sent to the identified 63,000 restaurants, requesting them to update their returns before Mar. 31, it said.
Over the course of the entire exercise that began in November, the department used data from 177,000 restaurants in the food and beverage sector, and compared it with the turnover declared in their Income Tax Returns. "The analysis revealed large-scale under-reporting of income," the release said. "In some cases, recorded sales were not fully reflected in financial accounts or tax filings, and certain transactions were excluded from reported sales." End
Reported by Priyasmita Dutta
Edited by Avishek Dutta
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