The Panama Papers case, HSBC tax evasion case, action against shell companies and the ongoing probe into 14,000 properties of over Rs 1 crore each, that have come to light as part of the Operation Clean Money, were among the 11 “high-priority” issues outlined by Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sushil Chandra in a video conference with top officers of the tax department’s investigation wing on Thursday. Chandra held the two-hour-plus video conference with Directors General of Income Tax (Investigation) across the country to review the outcomes of the investigative processes, especially those started after demonetisation. It is learnt that the investigation wing’s tax officers were also directed to wrap up the pending verification of nine Rajya Sabha members and 42 MLAs within a month in the ongoing Supreme Court case pertaining to discrepancies between the incomes and assets of several MLAs and MPs. “The meeting was held to take stock of the outcomes of various ongoing investigation processes. The CBDT chairman asked officers to focus on deadlines so that effective action can be taken at the earliest against tax evaders. Various issues relating to Panama Papers case, HSBC accounts, shell companies were discussed in the meeting,” the official said. Chandra, along with CBDT member (investigation) Gopal Mukherjee, also raised the issue of large number of persons and clusters having suspicious transactions identified through the department’s data analytics exercises of Operation Clean Money. “There was discussion about cases where some people without ever having filed income tax returns own properties worth over Rs 1 crore. Most of these people are non-resident Indians, some of whom have claimed that their return filing is due for the assessment year 2017-18. So, the officers have been asked to look into those claims and take necessary steps,” the official said. After two phases of Operation Clean Money, the income tax department is now preparing for the launch of Project Insight — an integrated platform for using technology to detect tax evasion and streamline data exchange mechanism for other government departments. After demonetisation, the I-T department had used data analytics to identify suspect transactions and cash deposits that were not matching with the income profiles of the taxpayers. In the second phase of Operation Clean Money, the I-T department had identified 5.56 lakh individuals whose tax profiles have been inconsistent with the cash deposits made by them after demonetisation. Another 1.04 lakh persons who did not disclose all bank accounts during e-verification in the first phase of Operation Clean Money were also identified. In the first phase launched on January 31, 17.92 lakh persons were identified for e-verification of large cash deposits, of which 9.72 lakh people had submitted online response. On Monday, the CBDT had informed the Supreme Court that it had found discrepancies between the incomes and assets of seven MPs and 98 MLAs after verification of their election affidavits. The affidavit filed by CBDT was in response to a petition filed by NGO Lok Prahari, which has submitted a list of 26 Lok Sabha MPs, 11 Rajya Sabha MPs and 257 MLAs and sought verification of their election affidavits claiming that there has been a disproportionate increase in their assets from the time they filed their previous election affidavits.
