Govt may pull up tax evaders via social media posts from next month

Key highlights

• Starting next month the tax officials may be looking at resident’s social media posts to match spending patterns with income declarations.
• Project Insight is expected to increase tax compliance up to 40%.
• The government has spent $156 million building Project Insight.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government may have proposed to begin accrual of tax evaders via posts on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram from next month.

Resident’s spending patterns with income declarations may be matched by the government to carve out those who try to escape the taxman in India, a report by NDTV said on Friday.

“Officials will be able to spot those who pay too little tax without raiding offices and homes as they currently do, the people said, asking not to be identified citing rules on speaking with the media,” the report said.

This will increase tax compliance up to 30-40% during the first phase of the project, the report said.

The Ministry of Finance has not yet made any official statement in this regard.

The government has been working on ‘Project Insight’ over the past seven years for a cost of nearly $156 million, the report added.
 
Last year the government said it had contracted L&T Infotech Ltd to help build the network and boost voluntary compliance.

Project Insight is said to ‘complement the world's largest biometric identity database,’ the report said.

The second phase of the project will be rolled out by December during which data analytics will mine, clean and process the information, the report added.

Last day for declaration of income tax returns for the financial year 2016-17 is on July 30.

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