New Delhi: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has decided to keep a close tab on transactions done at IF clinics, medical colleges providing admission under the NRI quota, hospitals, hotels, banquets and sellers of designer clothing, watches and luxury brands while targeting a 10% increase in new filers.
The step has been necessitated because the annual action plan circulated to officers has flagged that there is widespread violation of the rule mandating reporting of transactions of over Rs 2 lakh.
Compliance with the requirement to provide PAN is also low. From the tax department’s point of view, there is inadequate matching of these transactions with returns filed by individuals, which has been identified as a focus area, with officials instructed to carry out the exercise in a non-intrusive manner.
In several cases, income tax authorities have also discovered that large amounts of cash transactions have also taken place, resulting in the data not being reported or captured by luxury goods or watch stores. In fact, last year, the I-T department also carried out surveys at some of the leading watch retailers, which threw up evidence of irregularities, Times of India reported quoting sources in the Finance Ministry.
While I-T department has been focusing on high-value transactions for several years, and also sending out notices to those whose annual returns do not tally with the spending. it has refused to provide any data on the success that it has achieved in realising additional revenue. In the last financial year, some 7.8 crore returns were filed, a rise of 6.8% over the 7.3 crore returns filed in FV2021-22. During the current financial ear, it has also told its field officers to expand the number of new filers or someone who has not filed returns at the start of the year, the report added.
