Tamil Nadu man deposits Rs 246 crore in old currency, to pay 45% tax under PMGKY

Tamil Nadu- based businessman has deposited Rs 246 crore of demonetised notes in a branch of the Indian Overseas Bank. Though the identity of the man was not revealed but after the Income Tax officers tracked him for 15 days, he agreed to join the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) and pay around 45% of the deposited money as tax, a media report said.

On November 8, in order to curb black money in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes with immediate effect. The government had given time till December 30 to deposit the old currency in banks. Also, the government had said to deposit the unaccounted money or join hands with PMGKY by paying tax.

Under the PMGKY scheme, out of the total amount deposited 50% of the amount is taxed and 25% of the amount is kept with the government or Reserve Bank of India as non-interest bond for four year, as reported by The Times of India. 

In Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the tax department has found nearly 28,000 accounts to be suspicious. The department has sent a mail to these account holders ordering to disclose the account details. Those who will not reply, the I-T department will wait till the month end and then go behind them, the report said.

"If they accept on their own, the tax is only 45%. But if we find the money to be unaccounted, then the total tax will be around 83.5%," the official was quoted in the report. 

As per the report, an Income Tax official was quoted stating, "Most of them have joined the PMGKY scheme, which comes to an end on March 31. We hope the total unaccounted money will go up to Rs 1,000 crore before the month end. We are also warning people who are still not on board that the heat will increase from April 1."

Moreover, the officials said that there are many similar individuals and companies who have deposited the huge amount of cash in their accounts and accepted that the amount was unaccounted, the report said.