The Income Tax (I-T) department, on Tuesday, sought the cooperation of local authorities to sniff out unaccounted money floating in the real estate sector.
Welcoming Centre’s move on regulator for real estate sector, Director General (Investigations) S Ravi said that, “Last year we verified 60,261 cases in Bangalore and found that transactions worth around Rs 4,800 crore were done below the guidance value.”
Addressing the workshop for sub-registrars on tax deducted at source (TDS) provision on sale of immovable property, he said the department also found hundreds of cases where transactions above Rs 50 lakh were carried out without furnishing mandatory PAN details.
“In many cases, the original owner goes missing after he transfers the property and sub-registrars and other local authorities do not have a permanent address. It becomes difficult to track these people and collect tax,” he said.
Sub-registrars and other officials from the Department of Stamps and Registration have been advised to begin registering transactions as and when transfers happen and not wait until development is complete.
Chief Commissioner K Satyanarayana said: “In 2011-12, overall collection was Rs 5.58 lakh crore, of which Rs 2.2 lakh crore came from TDS. In Karnataka and Goa regions, it stood at Rs 50,000 crore and Rs 23,000 crore, respectively.”
Stating that the number of transactions in real estate sector also went up in Bangalore, he said that the Stamps and Registration Department saw as many as 16 lakh transactions generating revenue of Rs 4,971 crore in 2011-12.
“There was a hike of four lakh transactions compared to 2010-11, when about 12 lakh transactions generated Rs 4,250 crore,” he said. About 18 lakh transactions are estimated for year 2012-13.
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