I-T Dept Detects Over Rs 9,000 Cr Black Money, Begins Phase 2 of 'Clean Money'

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posted on 7 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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The Income Tax department on Friday launched the second phase of its ‘Operation Clean Money’ to detect black money after demonetisation and is set to issue notices to 60,000 entities.

New Delhi: The Income Tax department on Friday launched the second phase of Operation Clean Money to detect illicit cash deposited in the banking system after demonetisation. It is now set to issue notices to 60,000 persons, including 1300 ‘high risk’ persons, who have been identified for investigation.

Operation Clean Money (OCM) was initiated on January 31 to leverage technology for verification of cash deposits made in the post-demonetisation phase after 9 November, 2016. The department has detected Rs 9,334 crore of undisclosed income until February 28, according to a press release on Friday by the Income Tax department.

During the first phase of the operation, the department had sent texts and emails to 18 lakh people who made deposits of Rs 5 lakh and above. Last week the Centre told the Supreme Court that Rs 5,400 crore worth of undisclosed income was detected by law-enforcement agencies.

The nearly 18 lakh persons who have been served notice, appear to have done cash transactions that do not appear to be in line with their tax profile. Around half that number responded to the notices and the tax department has decided to close verification in cases where explanation about the source of cash was found to be sound. In cases where the cash deposit has been declared under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY), the verifications would also be closed.

The operation has now moved into the next phase with identification of high risk persons for detailed investigation. The identification has been done through use of data analytics, including integration of data sources, relationship clustering and fund tracking, according to the release. The high risk categories identified include businesses claiming cash sales as the source of deposits, which seem excessive compared to their past profile or industry norms; large cash deposits made by government employees; persons who have undertaken high value purchases and persons who have used shell entities for layering of funds.

The tax department claimed that the action has resulted in an increase of 21.7 % in the IT returns received last fiscal and a 16% growth in gross collection.