Tax dept keeps eye on IVF clinics, hospitals to detect evasion
NEW DELHI: In order to increase the tax base in the country and identify non-filers, the tax department is keeping a close eye on high-value expenditures and seeking information from hotels, banquets, IVF clinics and even medical colleges.
The income tax department in its annual Action Plan, which has been vetted by this newspaper, has identified hotels, banquets, luxury brand retailers, IVF clinics, hospitals, designer clothing stores, and medical colleges taking students on NRI quota as possible sources of high-value transactions, which are not getting reported properly.
Therefore, the department has instructed its official's such sources be identified and a verification exercise be conducted by calling for information in a non-intrusive manner.
The department has set a target of adding 10% (of the filer base at the end of 2022-23) more non-filers in the tax net during the current financial year. In 2022-23, 7.8 crore returns were filed as of March 31, 2023. The department had brought under tax net 8% non-filers in 2021-22, 10.2% in FY21 and 10.6% in 2019-20. A lower target has been fixed considering the high base effect.
The Annual Action plan further says that the Directorate of Systems will coordinate with principal chief commissioners of income tax of each region and provide data with regard to non-filers and stop filers by September 30, 2023.
The action plan has laid special focus on Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) to “augment considerable revenue as more areas have been included under this provision”. The tax department is following TDS collection trends to identify possible cases of evasion. The department is keeping an eye on cases showing negative trends in TDS payments, habitual late filing or non-filing of TDS statements, negative growth in TDS payment as against healthy growth in Advance tax payment, etc.