IT Department will enter new areas to prevent tax evasion: CBDT Chairman

CBDT Chairman Nitin Gupta has said that the income tax department is expanding into “new areas” of the economy to combat tax cheating, even as its investigation divisions employ analytics to sort through vast amounts of information on Indians with foreign holdings.

The Tax Department’s management is overseen by the Central Board of Direct Taxes. Along with its regular job of raising money for the government through the direct tax category, it also undertakes search and seizure operations to check for instances of tax evasion.

“We are covering a range of economic sectors” (while undertaking searches and raids). We don’t just focus on real estate or developers; we also work with other sectors of the economy, including those related to healthcare, pharma, developers, industries, manufacturers, and service providers. During a conversation, Gupta stated, “We are hitting new regions and diverse sectors of the economy that were never touched like asset reconstruction firms, gambling, betting, etc.

“I can say that our coverage is pretty thorough, “When questioned about recent patterns in tax evasion that the taxman had noticed, he responded. India was also growing “larger,” according to the CBDT chief “Apart from multiple global tax leaks on Indians having assets overseas, data through the CRS (common reporting standard) and FATCA (foreign account tax compliance act) system from various nations are also available.

While FATCA is a tax information reporting regime between India and the US, the CRS is a global uniform standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information. It requires financial institutions to identify their US accounts through enhanced due diligence reviews and report them on a regular basis to each other. “We have information through the Panama, Paradise, and Pandora Papers (global tax data leaks of asset holding by different people and entities), and while there are only a small number of cases, we are “populating” this information into the CRS and FATCA to extract data for our use,” the CBDT chairman said.