- I Paid A Bribe
- 9 years ago
- 2006 views
Extortion by Lady Tax Officer
- Commercial Tax, Sales Tax, VAT
- TIN Application and Number
- Paid INR 5,000
We have just started the process of setting up our food delivery service kitchen in Gurgaon (Registered Company- Zaza Foods Pvt Ltd) and had made our first purchase of equipment. Our kitchen equipment supplier is located in Delhi and had sent the first lot of equipment on a hired truck. The vehicle was stopped at the kapashera border and the vehicle was confiscated and sent to a truck depot just beside Rajiv Chowk. The reason given for stopping the truck was because we did not have a TIN number. This incident occurred at roughly 2 pm on 27th March 2015. Our supplier left from Delhi with all the relevant paperwork and met us in gurgaon. We went to the location near Rajiv Chowk together and reached by 5pm. A few men were sitting at the entrance of the depot, one of them greeted us and took us to a govt jeep ( Vehicle number: HR 12 U 0057) parked in the depot. A lady tax officer, Mrs. Rashmi Chaudhri, was sitting inside and she immediately asked us why we had not applied for the TIN.
We had been advised by our legal consel that you can only apply for the TIN number after making the first transaction. And the first transaction has to be paid at full rate (12.5% tax) vs 2% if you already have the TIN. The Haryana government allows you to apply for the TIN upto 15 days from the date of the first transaction. Thus legally we are not in the wrong as we were charged the full 12.5% tax rate and we tried explaining this to the Tax Officer.
However the Tax officer Rashmi Chuadhri refused to agree. She then called aside our legal consultant and they had some short discussion. He came and asked us for Rs. 5000. A few minutes later, the driver was called and his vehicle papers were released to him. We were asked for another 200 at the entry gate to let the truck exit.
All this time I was in a state of shock not knowing what to do out of fear of making the situation worse. One of the men standing near the jeep where all the officers were now gathered and laughing then walked by me and told me to lower my gaze. After that our legal consultant just told us to leave and that it was not our fault but that is how these officers function.
I had my phone recording devise on and recorded the entire incident. Only the negotiation of the bribe did not happen in front of me. It was a very strange setting to have this happen in a truck depot instead of an office. I do have on record the lady officer denying that we don't need to have applied for the TIN.