Hasan Ali Khan appears before IT authorities

Mumbai, Feb 18 (PTI) Hasan Ali Khan, the Pune-basedreal estate consultant and stud farm owner, who is alleged tohave stashed away over USD 8 billion in foreign banks, todayappeared before Income Tax authorities, apparently inconnection with notices issued to him over huge tax evasions.

I-T department had sent a show-cause notice onDecember 31, 2008 to Khan, demanding Rs 40,000 crore in taxesfrom him for not disclosing funds in several foreign bankaccounts, including USD 8 billion in an account in the Zurichbranch of UBS.

However, the UBS bank had recently denied any businessrelationship with Khan.

Though IT officials said Khan was present in theAssessment wing of their office at Churchgate and hisstatement was being recorded, they did not immediately confirmif he had appeared in connection with the 2008 notice or anyother that might have been issued to him before or after that.

Earlier, in January 2007, the I-T department hadraided Khan''s residence at Koregaon Park in Pune and hadseized documents that showed that he had USD 8.04 billion in aUBS account in Zurich.

The raid followed a revelation that Khan had allegedlyconcealed his income and not filed income tax returns since1999. The Department had also raided his properties in Mumbaiand Hyderabad.