The Indian government has ordered Samsung and its Indian executives to pay a fine of $601 million for evading taxes on imports of key telecom equipment. This is one of the biggest fines imposed by India in recent times. This fine has been notified through an official order issued to Samsung and its Indian executives.

Samsung, through its network division, has been importing telecom equipment into India. This includes some of the critical transmission components used in mobile towers. When these components are imported, the import duty has to be paid at the rate of 10% or 20%.

The government alleges that Samsung evaded taxes by misclassifying imported products and not paying these duties. That is, high taxable products were included in the category of low taxable goods and imported. These were sold to Reliance Jio, a telecom company owned by Mukesh Ambani.

The total profit earned by Samsung in India in 2023 is $955 million. A large part of this profit now has to be paid in fines.