E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, AUG 11 -

The Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) on Wednesday filed a tax evasion case against the directors and promoters of Unity Life International (ULI) in District Court, Lalitpur. The department has sought a penalty of Rs 2.57 billion from them.

DRI filed the case as per the Revenue Leakage Control Act that states that fines should be imposed double of the amount of the tax evaded. The amount of the tax evaded by ULI has be determined at Rs 858.6 million, according to DRI officials.

Among the defendants are ULI chairman Kashiram Gurung, managing director Bishnu Chhetri and other officials including Krishna Bahadur Chhetri, Bhim Bahadur Gurung, Indra Bahadur BK, Netra Rajbanshi, Mahendra KC and Bishwonath Gautam. Top honchos, including the chairman and managing director, are on the run, while police have arrested a few other officials, including Bhim Gurung, Gautam and Rajbanshi.

Regarding ULI’s associate institutions and members, DRI has told the District Inland Revenue Offices (IROs) concerned to determine their tax liabilities and collect from them. There were 37 institutions associated with ULI, including hospitals, department stores, insurance companies, banks, tour and travel agencies, airline agencies, real estate agencies, housing agencies, a soap factory, and those related to health, investment, bio-energy, media and hydropower.

Of the total 37 institutions, most were in their initial operations phase and were established in fiscal year 2008-09. Taxes can be collected from all institutions, apart for a few, according to a senior official of DRI.

DRI has also found that 76,010 of ULI agents have benefited from the network business, and has told the IROs to collect income tax from them. According to DRI, these agents have received over Rs 700 to Rs 20 million as commissions.

According to a DRI source, government lawyer has also suggested that cases can be filed against the associate institutions under the Money Laundering Act as their source of income is fraud.

Earlier, police had filed fraud cases against 108 persons involved in ULI, including top officials. They have been charged with committing fraud of Rs 3.79 billion and deceiving 366,000 people. ULI claims to have collected over Rs 6 billion from its 650,000 members.

A joint investigation team of DRI, Nepal Rastra Bank and Insurance Board concluded that ULI violated the Bank and Financial Institutions Act, Insurance Act, Securities Act, Cooperatives Act, Foreign Exchange Act, Revenue Leakage (Control) Act and Consumer Rights Protection Act, among others. Cases can be filed against them under these Acts, according to the report. ULI that ran social security schemes without legal permission had expanded its membership on a flawed binary network marketing model based on pyramid structure. It used to collect Rs 15,000 per member. Due to encouragement from political and other sectors, it expanded the membership base massively within just two years. It also expanded its membership even among Nepali migrant workers abroad.

ULI had expanded its membership base aggressively in fiscal year 2009-10, adding more than double new members within 10 months. The DRI investigation found that the membership went up by 219,984 last fiscal alone, while its membership base was just 104,301 until the end of the previous fiscal year. This figure matches with the membership figure provided by ULI to DRI.

Posted on: 2011-08-11 09:17

Post Your Comment

Please note that all the fields marked * are mandatory.
* Full Name
* Address
* Email Address
* Comment
* Captcha	Get another CAPTCHA code
Note:	Comments containing abusive words or slander shall not be published.