Demonetisation:Be ready for ‘Sawal 10 lakh Ka’

Income Tax Department knock your door over next fortnight

 Over the next fortnight, the tax office will ask everyone who deposited more than Rs 10 lakh in their bank accounts after November 8 to spell out the source of money. There are about 1.5 lakh bank accounts in which Rs 10 lakh or above has come in since announcement of demonetisation, according to information compiled by the department at Mumbai.A new e-platform put in place by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the apex tax authority, will be used to reach out to these account holders who will have to file their response online. “If the assessing officer requires more information, the assesse would be asked to submit them. The additional information will also be uploaded online. This is with the objective to bring about transparency,” said a city-based tax officer. In the course of a video-conference on Wednesday, CBDT members briefed senior officers of the I-T department about suspicious cash deposits, mobilisation target from the new declaration scheme, and the way to go about in taxing undeclared income that have found its way into banks.The 1,100 cases of search and seizure carried out by the tax department in the past two months have yielded around Rs 600 crore – of which Rs 150 crore is in new notes. About 1.5 lakh accountholders have deposited more than Rs 10 lakh each and there have been suspicious cash deposits in one crore accounts, belonging to 75 lakh people. Tax authorities believe that around Rs 1 lakh crore may be disclosed under the new income declaration scheme, which would result in tax collection of Rs 50,000 crore. “To begin with, the department will focus on the 1.5 lakh accounts with more than Rs 10 lakh deposits. This is the immediate priority and work will begin in the next few days,” said the official.