Deposits of only more than Rs 2.5 lakh will be questioned: Income Tax Department

Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman Sushil Chandra, on Tuesday said that the Income Tax department will chase only those who have deposited more than Rs 2.5 lakh in the demonetised currency. Also, those accounts will be questioned that does not match with the tax returns or have not filed their returns, as reported by PTI.

Post demonetisation exercise, CBDT received data in bulk from banks on deposits. Using the BigAnalytics, which is the in-house software used by the department, segregated the deposits which were over Rs 1 crore and not matching with the returns filed last year, the report said. 

While speaking at a seminar in Delhi, Chandra ensured that honest and genuine people will not be questioned by the IT deparment and only accounts with deposits more than Rs 2.5 lakh will be under the scanner. 

For instance, if a person deposits Rs 3 lakh, it will be "justified" if his/her annual taxable income is Rs 10 lakh. Hence, the tax department will "not touch" the account, the report added.

As per the report, Chandra said that the department has already found and segregated the data of deposits between Rs 2 lakh, Rs 80 lakh and above Rs 80 lakh. 

Highlighting on the alert which is given on the income tax e-filing website, he said that already 2 lakh people have logged in on it. The CBDT has sent SMS/emails to 18 lakh people who have made suspicious deposits over Rs 5 lakh during the 50 day demonetisation period.

"Our approach is very clear, very low rate please come (to pay tax). We will persuade through SMS, pay your taxes. If not, something more is required. Time has come we should be very clear about our tax liability... I will be happy if we can reach to that level where the person should be tax compliant and Section 132 (relating to search), 133A (relating to survey) can be removed from I-T Act," PTI report said quoting Chandra.