The probe, led by the Hyderabad investigation unit of the Income Tax Department, analysed nearly 60 terabytes of transactional data sourced from a pan-India billing software platform used by more than one lakh restaurants. Officials found that since the 2019–20 financial year, eateries using the software allegedly suppressed sales turnover of at least Rs 70,000 crore.
Authorities are yet to compute the final tax liability along with penalties on the unreported income. Notably, the billing software under scrutiny accounts for roughly 10% of the total restaurant billing software market, raising concerns that the overall scale of evasion across the industry could be significantly higher.
