Earn up to Rs 5 crore by informing IT Department about black money

New Delhi: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has yet again issued guidelines to award secret informers providing actionable clue about "untraceable" assesses who owe huge taxes and money to government.

Under the Income Tax Informants Rewards Scheme 2018 informant can get upto Rs 5 crore as reward for informing the tax department regarding any such undisclosed assets. The reward money is 10 percent of taxes levied, with the maximum reward being capped at Rs 5 crore.

Informants can get even higher prize if they can information about undisclosed foreign assets, cases of tax evasion and benami transactions.

The Income Tax department has brought out new guidelines to award secret informers providing actionable clue about "untraceable" assesses who owe huge taxes and money to government including in TDS and self assessment tax category.

It may be recalled that in 2015, the department issued a set of new instructions to all its offices in the country stating any person who provides credible inputs against a declared defaulter would be rewarded a 10 percent booty of tax realised from such an entity, but upto a maximum limit of Rs 15 lakh.

The guidelines were issued keeping in mind the huge challenge of tackling black funds in the country and at the same time boosting the revenue kitty.

The informant, whose identity would be kept secret except in cases where law requires, will just have to give inputs "supported by facts and documents".

The IT department had at the same time, made it clear that no "speculation, vague or inputs of general nature and educated guess" will be entertained in this regard.

The guidelines state that any information about such assesses who are either not traceable or have stated inadequate assets to pay due taxes will be covered under the scheme brought out after high-level deliberations in the government including with the Special Investigation Team on black money.

With PTI Inputs