Own a house but never filed income tax returns? Tax officials may knock on your door

If you thought that demonetisation was Prime Minister Narendra Modi's final blow to curb black money, you may be in for a surprise, once again.

According to a report in The Economic Times, Income tax authorities plan to pursue those who have properties in their name but haven't ever filed income tax returns.

As part of its crackdown on black money, tax officials may be going after people who own properties but don't file tax returns.

After making Aadhaar card mandatory for getting PAN and filing income tax returns, there were reports that government may soon make UIDAI-based Aadhaar authentication mandatory for real estate deals.

"We have a lot of data from various sources including on investments in property by people who have never filed returns," the report quoted an income tax official as saying.

This information will be verified to ascertain the source of income used for the purchase of the properties and to see if these are being held by benami owners, it added.

Enforcement action will be taken only in cases where there is concrete evidence, the official said. Otherwise, tax authorities will follow a non-intrusive approach. In some instances, the properties purchased exceed the income declared and in others, no income tax return has been filed, the report said

Last month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said example needs to be set to create a deterrent against use of anonymous people to hide ill-gotten wealth, amid some politicians and their family members coming under the scanner for alleged benami deals.

The government has taken steps under the stringent Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 that provides for confiscating properties of those who use name of other people to convert unaccounted wealth into white, Jaitley had said.

"Unless we can set some examples, we set down right deterrent against such kind of practices" can this practice of benami properties end, he added.