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New Delhi: Under
pressure to unearth black money, the Income Tax department has decided
to review all recent property deals to check for use of cash.
The plan is to start the scrutiny from Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida, and subsequently turn it into an all-India exercise.
Officials in the tax department, who announced the move on Monday,
did not elaborate on the period for which the review would be
undertaken. However, indications are that transactions starting in
2010-11 would come under the scanner.
The initiative has been taken by
the
Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to unearth black money in property
deals which largely goes undetected due to differences in market price
and registry rates set by state governments.
The
use of cash in secondary market transactions is very high though tax
officials have come across several instances even in sale of property by
builders. It has become commonplace for buyers to under-report the
transaction to save on registration cost. For sellers, especially those
who do not intend to use the money to buy new property, it means a
capital tax burden, which they want to evade.
16,000 flats allotted in DDA’s biggest scheme
Around
16,118 flats were allotted by DDA on Monday after a draw of lots. The
list of the successful applicants was uploaded on DDA website by
evening. The first house to be allotted was a one-bedroom janta flat in
Dwarka. The draw of lots for DDA’s biggest housing scheme so far was
conducted in Noida. P 2 Govt to tap developers for transactions below 30 lakh
New
Delhi: The drive against black money will also entail a review of
property deals in 2010-11 to check for cash transactions, the Income Tax
department had decided.
The real estate sector has been
identified as a key generator of black money in the economy. This is
despite the fact that registrars across the country have to report all
real estate transactions of Rs 30 lakh or more. The tax department then
uses the software available with it to match the data with the tax
returns using the permanent account number (PAN) furnished by taxpayers
while registering property. It is unclear if the department plans to
match all returns filed by registrars with the PAN numbers available
with it.
At present, the department has data for 2009-10
available with it, while information for 2010-11 will only be available
from August this year.
Officials
admitted that the challenge would be to review transactions of less
than Rs 30 lakh. The government is likely to depend on developers to
track these transactions. Under pressure from the SC on dealing with
black money, especially wealth stashed away in tax havens, the
government is keen to show that it is doing its bit to address the
concerns.
Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman Sudhir Chandra
said the finance ministry has initiated steps to stop round-tripping.
Already, 22 tax havens have been identified by the government and six
Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) have been signed with
jurisdictions such as Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Island, Cayman
Island and Isle of Man.
At
a press conference, Chandra also said the I-T department had cleared a
record 85 lakh refunds in 2010-11 to make manpower available to crack
down on tax evaders and money launderers. “In the fiscal ended March 31,
we have unearthed more than Rs 30,000 crore undisclosed income,” he
said. This certainly will go up as a large part of business income still
goes unreported, he added.
Chandra assured taxpayers that if
they filed e-returns, refunds could come within a month as most of the
backlog had been cleared.
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