22 crore high value transactions under I-T scanner

In a major crackdown, the Income Tax department has under its scanner more than 22 crore instances of High Value transactions in the country and abroad which include unreported credit card operations and deals in real estate.

The department has obtained, through its data mining and intelligence tools, instances of unreported transactions involving an estimated amount over Rs 2,000 crore. "The department is on the job to verify all the details of these unreported deals and a major operation is already underway in the country," a top I-T official said here.

The total deals under the probe lens are 22,52,06,979, the official said. The step is seen as a major drive to garner as much revenue as possible by the I-T before the fiscal closes and the budgetary target of Rs 5.32 lakh crore is achieved.

According to the official data of the tax department, its officials are working on sale and purchase of house property by 6,23,384 individuals worth Rs 30 lakh each.
These transactions were made during 2009-10 and 2010-11 financial years.

The department is also working on 27,50, 545 individual cases where cash deposits aggregating to Rs 10 lakh or more were made in savings bank account during the same fiscal. Under the I-T scanner are 15,23,728 individuals who made payments of Rs 2 lakh or more against their credit cards in the same fiscal while 32,21,695 individuals who acquired mutual fund schemes of Rs 2 lakh or more, bonds or debentures of Rs 5 lakh and above, shares issued by companies worth Rs 1 lakh and RBI issued bonds worth Rs 5 lakh and more.

"These high value transactions have not been reflected on the I-T returns. "The department has asked tax offices to get in touch with these taxpayers or individuals urging them to file the returns or revise them," the official said.