Children play with mica scrap in Giridih. Telegraph picture

Giridih, Sept. 13: Income-Tax sleuths raided the office of one Pradeep Kumar Jain on Monday after sniffing foul play in his mica business. The team surveyed the account books of the trader and seized them for further investigations.

The department officials got alarmed after they realis-ed that mica traders had exported goods worth Rs 300 crore in the last fiscal while all the mines of the district were shut down.

The closure of the mines has already deprived the state of the revenues it was getting as royalty. Now, the traders have devised methods of stealing the income-tax as well.

The raiding team lead by assistant director Sanjay Kumar informed that Jain was having a licence for mica processing, but his unit was not operational. Yet, he was selling products to other mica processors of the district. His account books had entries for sales, but did not provide purchase details of the raw material. The process led to evasion of tax at various ends.

One Ratan Mica company had evaded taxes to the tune of Rs 15 crore during the last fiscal, the officials informed. They added that companies of Garhwa, Tisri and Deori were also involved in the racket.

“We would be able to figure out the details of the racket only after completing the investigation of the books. Prima facie, this appears to be a case of tax evasion,” Sanjay Kumar said.