Central Board of Direct Taxes plugs gaps to check evasion

“The MoU marks the beginning of a new era of cooperation and synergy between SEBI and CBDT,” the CBDT said in a release. 
For representational purpose.
For representational purpose.

NEW DELHI:  When you file your tax returns this year, you will have to brace up for a string of new disclosures in all the income tax return (ITR) forms. For instance, if you are trading in stock markets and have invested over Rs 50,000, not revealing these share trading details in your ITR may now land you 
in trouble. 

Intensifying scrutiny on all possible ways of evading taxes, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has 
recently signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for data exchange between the two organisations. “The MoU marks the beginning of a new era of cooperation and synergy between SEBI and CBDT,” the CBDT said in a release. 

The tax sleuths claim all investment and trading data will be shred on an automatic and regular basis as well as when requested by either of the parties or on suo moto basis “for the purpose of carrying out their functions under various laws.”  “While the previous ITR asked for other sources of income including interest, dividend, people were not upfront in giving out details. The tax department only took note in case of a big gap in the accounts.

But now,with this data sharing even the small evasion will be detected. So it is better to come out clean,” 
a senior I-T official told this publication.The official added that the department has also sought increasing thepenalty amount for non-disclosure of such data which would prevent even small amounts of tax evasion by retail investors. In addition, a data exchange steering group has also been constituted for the initiative which would meet periodically to review the data exchange status and take steps to further improve the 
effectiveness of the data-sharing mechanism. 

The I-T department, in the new form, has added a new sheet, which will make such disclosures easy under Schedule 112A, recording sale of equity shares in a company listed on the stock market or an equity-based fund on which Securities Transaction Tax is paid.  As the tax  collection remains subdued, officials are trying to plug all possible gaps to check evasion by both big and small traders as price manipulation of ‘penny stocks’ has been at the centre of major tax evasion cases.

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