NEW DELHI: The Income Tax (I-T) department on Tuesday announced the launch of a drive to track down and examine suspicious cash deposits made between November 9 and December 31, 2016. Called ‘Operation Clean Money’, it will see emails and SMSes seeking explanations sent to over 18 lakh people who have been identified.
This list includes people who deposited over Rs 5 lakh in bank accounts during the period. All those approached by the tax authorities will have to reply within 10 days through the e-filing portal of the department to avoid any notice or further enforcement action. In case of any difficulty in submitting online response, help desk can be reached at 1800-4250-0025.
“Operation Clean Money... is a programming software which will be used to get answers on all deposits made and after preliminary answers have been received. Then only, if need be, will we take legal action,” Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said.
“In the initial phase, we are putting data of those persons who have deposited Rs 5 lakh or more and deposits between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh of suspicious nature and who have poor tax compliance after November 8,” Central Board of Direct Taxes Chairman Sushil Chandra said. “We have compared these vast data with the income profile, turnover and the various other particulars of income available... where the deposits do not match our data, we are seeking explanation of source of income,” he pointed out.
Chandra said the intention of the scheme was to avoid any harassment to the tax payer, since they did not need to come to offices to give explanations. “We have hired the data analysts and we will identify the ultimate beneficiaries even in layered accounts.”
However, sources in the department say that even though much of the initial sifting will be done by software, the outliers will still need serious effort from the department to examine. “That will be the challenge, investigations following identification will take a long while because some sections are short-staffed.”