I-T dept identifies 90 lakh high-value transactions without PAN; to seek details

New Delhi: The Income Tax department has identified 90 lakh high value transactions without quoting PAN, the finance ministry said Thursday asking tax evaders to own up and come clean on such transactions.

As part of the scrutiny, I-T department will initially issue 7 lakh letters to those who have indulged in such transactions seeking their details.

The high-value transaction trails were detected following the department's drive to bring to book maximum amount of black money during the one-time compliance window closing on September 30.

"The department has details of about 90 lakh such transactions for the period 2009-10 to 2016-17," a finance ministry statement said.

It said the tax department, with the help of in-house computer techniques, grouped such non-PAN transactions and identified 7 lakh high-risk clusters having around 14 lakh non-PAN transactions and these are being "scrutinized" by the tax department closely.

"The department will be issuing letters to the parties of these transactions requesting them to provide their PAN number against these transactions," the ministry said.

The tax department has scrutinized the Annual Information Returns (AIR) for high value transactions which have divulged cash deposits of over Rs 10 lakh in a savings bank account, sale/purchase of immovable property valued at Rs 30 lakh or more, and many of these transactions do not have PAN linked to it.

Further for convenience of people to whom letters have been issued, the department has developed a new functionality on e-filing portal wherein the such entities can own up transactions and provide structured response electronically.

The parties can log-in to their e-filing website and by quoting a Unique Transaction Sequence Number provided in the letter sent to them, can link their transaction with their PAN easily, the ministry said.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has been monitoring the progress of the ongoing four-month long Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) which opened on June 1. 25 percent of tax and penalty on income declared is to be paid by November, another 25 percent by March 2017, and the remaining by September 2017.