The Income Tax Department raided the offices of several Chinese companies such as Xiaomi and Opposition on Wednesday. The I-T department said it had “intelligence inputs” that the companies were involved in alleged concealment of income and evasion of tax.
The raids came a day after the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had searched the factories of Foxconn India’s unit, Bharat FIH, and Dixon Technologies which are contract manufacturers for Xiaomi.
Over 20 premises of the two Chinese companies in the National Capital Region, Mumbai, Rajkot, and Karnataka were searched by I-T sleuths on Wednesday.
As per the Economic Times report, searches were also conducted at the offices of OnePlus, another Chinese brand that had merged with Oppo, but continues to operate as a separate brand.
Xiaomi and Oppo said they are cooperating completely with the tax department authorities. Incidentally, the raids at Foxconn’s India unit came on the day the company filed for Rs 5,000 core IPO in India.
The raids started early Wednesday and continued till the end of the day, the report added. The I-T is yet to reveal is findings of its raids conducted across factories, godowns and even residences of senior executives of the companies.
The I-T department found in some cases losses were booked but import bills showed profits, the report added.
The recent raids on Chinese smartphone makers comes after similar raids were conducted across premises of other Chinese companies spanning mining, chemicals, heavy machinery manufacturing. These companies were found to have evaded tax, as per government accounts.
Also, several state police and agencies had earlier launched crackdowns against Chinese lending apps under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The raids come amid a standoff between Indian forces and the People’s Liberation Army on the Ladakh border.
