Mail Today Bureau Last Updated: November 15, 2017 | 09:34 IST
The Income Tax Department is matching the tax profiles of all property registrations valued above Rs 30 lakh under the provisions of the anti-benami Act as part of its stepped up action against black money Disclosing this here on Tuesday, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman Sushil Chandra on Tuesday said, "We have obtained this information under the law. If these profiles are found suspicious or incorrect, action will be taken under the Benami Act."
Chandra said the I-T Department has attached 621 properties, including some bank accounts, and the total amount involved in these cases, being probed under the Benami Transactions Act, is about Rs 1,800 crore. The new law allows for the confiscation of properties, fine and a maximum jail term of up to 7 years. All shell companies and their directors whose operations were recently banned by the government are also being put through a thorough check, he added.
"We will destroy all instruments that are used to convert black money into white. This also includes shell companies,'' he remarked. He made the observations while interacting with reporters after inaugurating the Income Tax Department's pavilion at the India International Trade Fair (IITF) which began at Pragati Maidan here today. Chandra said they are taking the Benami assets cases very seriously and the tax officials have done a lot of work on this front.
"We have opened 24 units of the department to implement the anti-benami Act all over the country. We are getting information from different sources. Our efforts in this direction are being intensified further,'' he disclosed. Chandra said that the taxman is also matching the data of shell companies which have been debarred recently. If these companies have some benami property or any other financial transaction that the I-T department has received and that is not matching, action will be taken, he said.
After the shock demonetization on November 8 last year, the I-T department had warned people against depositing their unaccounted banknotes in accounts maintained by someone else. Such an act, it had said, would attract criminal charges under the Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988, applicable on both movable and immovable properties
