New Delhi, Apr 18: A step towards shunning down the shell companies, the IT has warned to strike off names of around one third of 11 lakh Indian companies who are currently working as they have failed to register their returns for three consecutive financial year.
Notices for the same have been sent to companies since last month to over four lakh companies that have not filed their returns for 2013-14 and 2014-15 with the companies’ registrar. These companies have also not filed their returns for 2015-16 but it seems that there is still time. A deadline of 30 days is been given to these companies to file their returns which if not done will lead to the government striking off their names under the companies registration. Also to make sure that the defunct companies are not able to transact, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs will publicly announce the name of such companies and also intimidate about them and their respective directors to the IT, banks and RBI. The illegal and defunct companies once identified will will be handed over to the SFIO for further investigation and then the IT department and the ED department will be involved to further scrutinize. The fear of getting their names struck off has prompted several companies to file their returns.
On the other hand, the Companies’ Act has asked all companies to seek a ‘dormant’ tag but the number of companies who have actually acquired the tag are comparatively low. In March 2016 end, there were 14.6 lakh cos out of which 10.2 lakh were active and the rest 214 came under ‘dormant’.
To identify all the shell companies, the government has launched an offensive against so-called shell companies those who were found to deposit cash during demonetization and has also formed a manhunt team to plan out a strategy for making sure that these companies are not used against tax evasion and money laundering.
