CBDT acts against intermediaries filing tax returns with bogus deduction claims

NEW DELHI: After a massive nationwide operation, Central Board of Direct Taxes acted against several intermediaries involved in filing income tax returns with bogus claims of deductions and exemptions under the Income Tax Act.

The move followed actions in July 2025, covering 150 premises, during which more than 102 suspicious RUPPs were identified for their role in facilitating bogus donation-linked deductions. Data analytics had flagged over 2 lakh taxpayers who claimed suspicious deductions under Section 80GGC, adding up to Rs 5,500 crore routed through suspicious or non-existent RUPPs and a similar amount of bogus donations to non-genuine charitable organisations, said officials.

The enforcement findings have also prompted reversals of bogus deductions by taxpayers. Around 54,000 have already corrected their filings and withdrawn ineligible claims worth approximately Rs 1,400 crore and updated their returns after CBDT nudged them to revise their returns.

Most of these taxpayers claimed deductions below Rs 5 lakh and a few companies claimed very high deductions.

The exercise also revealed how intermediaries had established networks of agents to file returns with incorrect claims on commission basis. An intermediary was found to be advertising guaranteed refunds in cinema halls and on social media. It was found that there was a syndicate of professionals who was operating through WhatsApp and Telegram channels to find taxpayers looking at reducing tax liability through fake donations to RUPPs or charitable organisations.

Instances of misuse of CSR-linked trusts, which facilitated bogus donation receipts in exchange for cash-back, were found during the probe.

“It was observed that huge amounts of bogus claims have been made on account of donation RUPPs or charitable institutions and reduced their tax obligations and have also claimed bogus refunds.

Evidence gathered from enforcement actions indicated that RUPPs many of which were non-filers, non-operational at their registered addresses, and are not engaged in any political activity were being used as conduits for routing funds, hawala transactions, cross border remittances and issuing bogus receipts for donations,” an official statement said.



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