Chandigarh, Aug. 10 -- The excise department and central GST teams on Friday raided over a dozen prominent salons in Sectors 8, 9, 26, and 35 after multiple complaints of goods and services tax (GST) evasion surfaced.

A senior excise department official revealed that these salons offered services such as haircuts, hair colouring, makeup, spa treatments, and wedding packages at exorbitant rates, sometimes even up to lakhs, but avoided the 18% GST applicable on them. Further, they asked their customers to pay in cash without receiving bills. Their official records only reflected transactions related to the sale of beauty products while the actual revenue from services were concealed.

The teams are now scrutinising these salons' three-year...