Lottery baron coughs up highest I-T return of Rs. 19 crores

Lottery baron coughs up highest I-T return of Rs. 19 crores


GANGTOK, April 8: A recent income tax raid on a lottery baron in Kolkata has led to the payment of the highest payment of income tax amounting to Rs. 19 crores. The West Bengal circle of the income tax department has claimed it to be perhaps the highest amount paid by a single assessee.

According to news reports, the above whopping amount as income tax was coughed up from Santiago Martin who is the sole distributor of West Bengal State Lottery, Sikkim State Lottery, Arunachal State Lottery, Meghalaya State Lottery and Royal Bhutan Lottery.

The news reports mentioned that officers at the I-T department found out that M/s Future Distributors, which is the sole distributor of these lotteries and owned by Martin, had not filed any income tax return. The officers started keeping a watch on the Taratolla premises of Future Distributors and started entering the office under the garb of potential stockists.

Old files and other documents revealed that Martin had been floating lottery distributorship companies only to win a lot of cash from unsold tickets which he would never return to the lottery companies,the reports mention.

According to rules, all unsold tickets should be returned to lottery companies. “We have found details in Martin's accounts books to show that he has been winning constantly from unsold tickets, details of which have been meticulously maintained. Most draws happen in remote places and people do not question the results that are printed in newspapers,”

Sumit Dasgupta, the officer who led the raid was quoted as saying by the national media.

"The moment he made his money, he would wind up the company and float another one. Naturally, it was difficult to nab him all this while,"Dasgupta added.

According to the reports, Martin is a Class VII dropout and started out by hawking lottery tickets. In 1981, he devised his ingenious plan of not returning unsold tickets and managed to win Rs 1.5 lakh, the report mentions. There was no looking back since.

The reports mention that Martin started taking sole distributorships of several state-backed lotteries. He floated and wound up companies in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka according to documents with the I-T department, evading huge amounts in taxes, the national media reported.