Skip to main content

Registered properties worth over Rs 30 lakh on scanner as CBDT turns up heat on black money

Image
By
Registered properties worth over Rs 30 lakh on scanner as CBDT turns up heat on black money
The I-T department will comb through the tax history of all people who have registered property valued above Rs 30 lakh to check if any tax evaders own such properties by proxy, CBDT chairman Sushil Chandra said.
The government’s continuing crackdown on black money will now see tax officials sift through details of property ownership to ascertain cases of tax evasion and benami transactions.According to Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman Sushil Chandra, the Income Tax department will comb through the tax history of all people who have registered property valued above Rs 30 lakh to check if any tax evaders own such properties by proxy.
Mismatches between asset ownership and reported income enable the department to identify cases of tax evasion. In benami ownership, the beneficial owner of the asset will be different from its legal owner.The exercise follows the enactment of the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act on November 1 last year. Since then, tax department has attached 621 properties, including some bank accounts, and the total amount involved in these cases is about Rs1,800 crore, the CBDT chairman said.
The tax department is also investigating the shell companies that were recently struck off the registry and their directors as part of the drive against black money generation, the official said.We will destroy all instruments that are used to launder unaccounted wealth. This also includes shell companies,” Chandra told reporters after inaugurating the Income Tax department pavilion at the India International Trade Fair (IITF) which began at New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan on Tuesday.
Chandra said the tax authority has already done a lot of work on tracking down benami assets.Increased surveillance by the government and a crackdown on black money has led to a three-fold increase in PAN (permanent account number) registrations, an 18 per cent rise in income tax returns as well as a significant increase in the number of properties seized by the tax department this year.

The Business Standard, New Delhi, 15th November 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shrinking footprints of foreign banks in India

By
Shrinking footprints of foreign banks in India Foreign banks are increasingly shrinking their presence in India and are also becoming more conservative than private and public sector counterparts. While many of them have sold some of their businesses in India as part of their global strategy, some are trying to keep their core expertise intact. Others are branching out to newer areas to continue business momentum.For example, HSBC and Barclays Bank in India have got out of the retail business, whereas corporate-focused Standard Chartered Bank is now trying to increase its focus on retail “Building a retail franchise is a huge exercise and takes a long time. You cannot afford to lose it,” said Shashank Joshi, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ’s India head.According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, foreign banks’ combined loan book shrunk nearly 10 per cent from Rs 3.78 trillion in fiscal 2015-16 to Rs 3.42 trillion last financial year. The banking industry, which includes foreign banks…
Post a Comment
Read more

GST Refund of Rs 20,000 Cr Pending: Exporters’ Body

By
GST Refund of Rs  20,000 Cr Pending: Exporters’ Body Refund of over Rs 20,000 crore on account of Goods and Services Tax (GST) is pending with the government with more than half the amount stuck as input tax credit, Federation of Indian Export Organisations said on Tuesday. While claims over Rs7,000 crore were cleared in March, the amount was Rs 1,000 crore in April.However, after exporters’ request, the GST council and tax department are organizing a second phase of Special Refund Fortnight starting May 31, which will enable exporters to draw their refunds at a speedy pace. Many exporters have been unable to file the refund of input tax credit due to technical glitches, exports and claim happened in different months. The major challenge lies on ITC refund especially because the process is partly electronic and partly manual which is cumbersome and add to the transaction cost, the exporters’ body said. On IGST, refunds are getting delayed due to airline and shipping companies not submitt…
2 comments
Read more

RBI rushes in to prop up falling rupee

By
RBI rushes in to prop up falling rupee India’s central bank reportedly intervened in the currency markets on Monday to prevent a further slide in the local unit, which breached the 67 mark to a dollar for the first time in 15 months amid a widening trade gap and runaway import bills fuelled by high crude-oil prices. Some state-owned banks were seen selling dollars aggressively, interventions that market dealers attributed to the central bank’s strategy to stem the decline of the Indian rupee against the US currency. The rupee is the worst performing among a dozen Asian monetary units in the past three months. It lost 4.25 per cent to the dollar during the period, show data from Bloomberg. On Monday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is said to have sold about Rs 800 million collectively on the spot and exchange traded futures markets, dealers said. An email sent to RBI remained unanswered until the publication of this report. The currency market has seen such a strong central bank interven…
Post a Comment
Read more