In its bid to curb generation of black money, the Indian Income Tax Department is planning to put in a system of real-time monitoring of high-value banking transactions.
As of now, the banks send a quarterly report to the income tax department on high value deals transacted through them. With this, the department plans to identify the taxpayers who do high-value deals. Also, the income tax department plans to provide such taxpayers a pre-filled online form at the time of filing returns reflecting the deals done by them.
An income tax department official told Sputnik on condition of anonymity, “Currently, banks share with the income tax department the details of high-value transactions every three months and a detailed report is filed annually. We will put in a system of real time, live tracking of such transactions.”
In the event of any high-value deal coming to the notice of the income tax department, an SMS will immediately be sent to the assessee making the deal and an explanation will be sought on the spot, said the official explaining the system.
The tax department, which will identify such transactions, will also prepare a pre-filled income tax return form detailing all the high-value transactions that the taxpayer in question may have done in a particular assessment year.
“The pre-filled form will have the details of income from investments in mutual funds, shares, interests, and dividends. The department receives information from high-value deals from all banks, Reserve Bank of India, and the securities exchange board of India (Sebi),” said the official.
Cash payment or deposits over INR.50,000 ($704) qualify as high value. Similarly, purchase of shares above INR 100,000 ($1,400), immovable property over $14,000, purchase of foreign currency over $2,800, among others in a year by an assessee quantifies as a high-value deal. The sums involved can be quite large. The income tax department detected $14.08 billion worth of unreported high-value transactions in 2017-18.