With the government tightening its screws on black money holders, the number of income tax returns filed this fiscal has risen by nearly 25 per cent.

According to official data, the total number of income tax returns filed till August 5 grew by 24.7 per cent to 2.82 crore as against 2.26 crore in 2016-17.

The number of returns filed by individuals this fiscal rose by 25.3 per cent to 2.79 crore as against 2.22 crore last fiscal.

“This clearly shows that substantial number of new tax payers have been brought into the tax net subsequent to demonetisation,” said the Finance Ministry on Monday.

August 5 was the last day for filing income tax returns, after the deadline was extended from July 31.

While the Income Tax department had launched Operaiton Clean Money to look into suspicious cash deposits during the note ban period, taxpayers also had to declare cash deposits of over Rs 2 lakh in their bank accounts in the demonetisation window.

They also have to link their Permanent Account Numbers with Aadhaar and quote the 12-digit biometric identity number in the income tax returns.

The Finance Ministry further said that the effect of demonetisation was also visible in direct tax collections.

Advance tax collections of personal Income Tax rose by 41.79 per cent by August 5 as against a year ago. Similarly, personal income tax under self assessment tax grew at 34.25 per cent by August 5 compared to a year ago.