Deposited Rs 10 lakh or more in bank a/c after Nov 8? Be ready to reveal source of money in next 15 days
As per latest proceedings, the Income Tax Dept. has issued a circular that it will keep vigil of all those bank accounts which were used for bulk deposits of more than Rs. 10 lakh after the demonetization drive in India. This enquiry by the IT Dept. will be carried out on every such account which had such deposits after the call for demonetization on 8th Nov, 2016 by PM Narendra Modi. A list has been prepared of all such bank account holders and the IT Dept. will be in touch of each and every such account holder to know about their source of deposit. It is estimated that around 1.5 lakh such suspicious accounts are there where IT Dept will have their focus on. However, there is still time left if someone wishes to disclose their unaccounted wealth to the IT officials under the self declaration project.
How the enquiry of the big deposits will be done by IT Department
The IT Dept. is planning to be in touch of each and every bank account holder who has made deposits exceeding Rs. 10 lakh in their accounts after the 8th of November. The account holders will have to share necessary information related to the source of income and other aspects. For this, the IT Department is planning to come up with an e-platform which will take online filing of all such instances from those specific accounts and their users, through online mode. The assessing officer has all rights to fetch more information and the same will have to be provided by the account holder. In case online response is not received from the account holder’s end, IT officials may also conduct raids. This scheme will help the Centre to curb the menace of black money and make the system transparent.
Income Tax scrutiny so far after demonetization
The IT Dept. has been extra vigilant on any suspicious and dubious deposits and transaction made after the call for demonetization from 8th Nov, 2014. It has been keeping a strict eye on all such accounts with large deposits in both old scrapped notes of Rs. 500 and 1000. In addition to this, there have been several cases of raids where illegal stacks of new currency notes were recovered. Below are some actions taken by the IT Dept after demonetization:
- As per records of IT Dept., more than 1,100 special raids have been conducted after 8th where search as well as seizure operations were carried out by its officials with special leads from intelligence teams.
- Nearly Rs. 600 crore of black money has been seized by the IT officials in the last two months in the country. This not only includes the old scrapped notes, but also the new currencies of Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000.
- Throughout the nation, there might be suspicious deposits of unaccounted wealth in nearly one crore bank accounts after demonetization. These accounts belong to nearly 75 lakh citizen.
- With the centre’s present scheme to declare income generated from black money, it is expected that Rs. 1 lakh crore might get disclosed out of which half of the amount i.e. Rs. 50 thousand crore will be collected by IT Dept.
- Not only accounts of nationalized banks, all co-operative bank accounts have also been under the scanner of the IT Dept. where huge suspicious deposits have been made in past two months.
- Those account holders who have made huge deposits in their bank accounts might also get IT notices within middle of the February.
Reliance on technology by the Income Tax dept. to fight black money
The IT Dept. will have to become more technologically advanced to mine out the tax evaders and black money holders in the country. Reliance on new technologies is the only solution to fight against all corruptive measures and illegal wealth. IT Dept. has been taking consultations from masters of analytics works such as EY and Deloitte which will help the tax officers to locate all such discrepancies in the banking and taxation system, more efficiently. Technology of data analysis is implemented to distinguish between the genuine taxpayers and the tax evaders.
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