By Kiran Kabtta Somvanshi, ET Bureau |
Feb 14, 2017, 06.43 AM IST
ET INTELLIGENCE GROUP: With the Prime Minister’s Office
setting up a task force late last week to monitor action against deviant shell companies after the February 1 Budget tightened rules
against such entities, Kolkata may well bear the brunt of the clampdown. The city tops the search for most companies
registered at the same address.
This is the location that heads the list — 9/12, Lal Bazar
Street, with 315 companies. It just happens to be the address of the city’s police headquarters as well. Registered Companies, an
analytics firm specialising in corporate due diligence, crunched through data from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and found that 1,410
companies are registered in different blocks of the 9/12 Lal Bazar Street area with 84 of them based in Room No. 10 in one block. The
area is a warren of chartered accountants’ offices with most of the companies being private limited ones engaged in wholesale
trading and real estate.
A little over 11,281 firms are registered at 148 addresses,
an average of 76 each. Seven of the top 10 most common addresses are in Kolkata. Apart from the one above, these are 52, Weston
Street; 5, Gorky Terrace; 266, Dakshindari Road; 91, Shakespeare Sarani, and 4/A, Palit Street.
TEN MOST
COMMON ADDRESSES WITH MAXIMUM COMPANIES REGISTERED
ADDRESS NO.OF
COMPANIES REGISTERED
9/12 LAL BAZAR STREET KOLKATA 315
9/12 LAL BAZAR STREET BLOCK B 3RD FLOOR KOLKATA 315
M-62-63 FIRST FLOOR CONNAUGHT PLACE NEW DELHI 311
52 WESTON STREET KOLKATA 277
5 GORKY TERRACE 2BD FLOOR KOLKATA 272
FORTUNE MONARCH MARK 3RD FLOOR 306 PLOT NO 707-709
JUBILEE HILLS ROAD NO 36 HYDERABAD 244
266 DAKSHINDARI ROAD
FLOT NO 2B BLOCK A LAKE TOWN KOLKATA 158
91 SHAKESPEARE SARANI KOLKATA 155
4/A PALIT STREET 2ND FLOOR KOLKATA 154
5TH FLOOR TOWER B WORLD MARK AEROCITY NEW DELHI 147
Source-Registered companies
To be sure, there is no limit on companies that can be
registered at the same address. Consultants typically house the registered offices of companies for which they handle compliances, a
practice common in Singapore and Mauritius as well, said Vinod Kothari, a company law practitioner based in Kolkata. A company
secretary firm in Singapore will be home to the registered offices of hundreds of companies, typically called ‘letter box
companies’. But a corporate affairs ministry
official said many of them exist only to turn black into white.
“Some may also be incorporated for the purpose of selling off
at a later stage to parties who want to acquire up-and-running firms rather than incorporate new ones. The ministry, Serious Fraud
Investigation Office and income-tax department are aware of these
practices and action is being taken.”
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India said it’s
determined to discipline erring members.
Any misconduct that abets corruption and money laundering
will be investigated and punished if proven, the institute told ET.
“Most of these companies typically have small paid-up capital
and high general reserves,” said a Kolkata-based independent financial adviser.
According to people with knowledge of the matter, the system
involves seasoned accountants and money market brokers bringing together two sets of people — those with unaccounted cash and
those needing it. ..
The shell companies belong to the latter group and have big
amounts as ‘cash on hand’ but actually hold little of it as it’s been used in ways that can’t be accounted for. They have mostly spent
their earnings and fund withdrawals from banks for personal use, bribes
and commissions.
‘KOLKATA HAS BEEN
NOTORIOUS’
“Kolkata has been very notorious for shell companies being
used for money laundering, especially penny stocks being used to create long-term capital gains that are exempt from tax, a
loophole that was plugged in this year’s Budget,” said Amit Maheshwari, partner, Ashok Maheshwary & Associates LLP. “Given the
complexity of the transactions and the accounting involved, it won’t be easy for individuals to swiftly cover up the trail of of
black money.”
As a natural corollary, email IDs are also common for many
companies. For instance, “investor@srsr.in” is the corporate email ID for 213 companies. This address, “group.dsc.group@gmail.com”, is
the director’s email ID at 206 companies. Of about 1.5 million registered companies, only 600,000 file annual returns, the
PMO said.
Shell companies are characterised by nominal paid-up capital,
high reserves and surpluses on account of receipts of high share premiums, investment in unlisted companies, no dividend
income, high cash in hand, private companies as majority shareholders, low turnover and operating income, nominal expenses, nominal
statutory payments and stock in trade, besides minimum fixed assets.
Among the non-Kolkata addresses, a Connaught Place address is
the third most common with 311 companies. A Jubilee Hills Road address in Hyderabad is the sixth most common address with
244 (largely agro) companies registered.
HARD TO TRACE OWNERSHIP
Such proliferation makes it hard to trace ownership.
“This could all be easily tackled through a mandatory
requirement of declaration of natural persons. And, of course, if a company wrongly declares a natural person, the benami law is there to
tackle such wrong declarations,” said Kothari.
“There is a global trend to find the natural persons behind a
corpor which is behind Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) regulations, as well as US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
(FATCA) regulations... It is important, no matter what regulation ensures this, to ensure that the identity of natural persons
behind a company be established.”
The PMO said harsh penalties will meted out to deviant shell
companies including freezing of bank accounts, striking off the names of dormant companies and invocation of Benami Transactions
(Prohibition) Amendment Act.2016.
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