Your rising zeroes under scanner

CHANDIGARH: Eyeing to net the big fish, the income tax department is reaching out to around a lakh people in the tricity whose financial dealings will be under the scanner if their transactions do not match the annual returns.
"Out of this number we are initially targeting around 20,000 persons whose transactions are suspect. We understand another 30,000 of them would be in the grey area,"a senior I-T official told TOI.
Sources in the department said the suspect transactions are those wherein either the assesse has not mentioned the permanent account number (PAN) or has reported it wrongly, or has mentioned his incomplete name.The department is asking them to assess their tax liability and file returns in time.
"The data given on financial transactions by seven agencies is being processed. We are sending letters to the transacting parties to ascertain their tax liabilities, file returns and intimate us where they have done so. In case they do not get back to us by the end of the financial year, they will be chased,"said the official.
Implementing the provisions of the I-T Act, the department had asked for annual information returns (AIRs) for the first time from various agencies for the financial year 2004-05.
The process of collecting information was started in June 2005. According to officials, there are around millions of such transacting parties and the amount is worth a few thousand crore.
Sources said the department would populate (make adequate corrections) the data after the responses from the suspect transacting parties and then try to arrive at the bigger picture. They said tracing such transactions is a priority area for the department as directions have come from the finance minister himself.
Explaining the rationale behind the exercise, sources in the I-T department said the economic profile of the country undergoing a change in the recent years has mandated a serious effort to match individual I-T returns with expenditure and investment patterns. The move will help widen and deepen the tax base, they added.