I-T zooms in on evaders with big investments

NEW DELHI: Making huge investments and not paying tax or filing returns? Here’s bad news for you. The income tax department has a ‘360-degree’ profile of such tax evaders ready and is all set to nab them.

The department has carried out project on a pilot basis in the Capital and has a ready reckoner on a large number of evaders. The 360-degree profiling includes data on an individual’s spending, investments and earnings using data from annual information returns. The pilot has revealed that there were a large number of individuals who had made huge investments but were absent from the list of taxpayers and income tax return filers, an official said.

Despite the increase in filing returns, the department found out that there were a large number of individuals, who despite making huge investments, had not filed returns.

Since the pilot has given excellent results in the Capital, the 360-degree profiling will be expanded to other centres. The profiles have been created using the information received from the annual information returns through a search engine. The 360-degree profiling was also highlighted at the recent meeting of the directors-general of investigation.

The department is also creating a cell to monitor collection of tax from the individuals who were caught with huge disclosures. This data would be available for use by intelligence wing. The data could include the modus operandi of tax evasion, amount of undisclosed investments and undisclosed bank accounts.

All entries would be given a unique identification number and could be accessed by the investigation wing through out the country. This would streamline the use and maintenance of such kind of information as there have been instances where in an evader is found to be operating out of various cities.

deepshikha.sikarwar@timesgroup.com