Bengaluru, Dec 15: Karnataka has earned the distinction of topping the list of states identifying unaccounted money and seizing new currency notes worth crores since demonetisation was announced.
Of the 3,000 crore unaccounted money recovered by the income tax department across the country, 20% has been seized in Karnataka alone. Of 48 cases referred by the I-T department to the Enforcement Directorate for investigation, 23 have been registered in Karnataka.
Senior income tax officials said they had prepared a list of people with undisclosed income much before the central government announced the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) early this year.
Though the IDS delayed the raids for some time, it took off soon after and the time also coincided with demonetisation, a senior tax department official said, requesting anonymity.
The proactive investigation wing of the Karnataka directorate recently prepared a standard operating procedure (SOP) for institutions which were not deducting tax on big transactions at source, including cooperative societies where large amounts of unaccounted money were deposited in the past few months. The SOP became a role model for other directorates to emulate and keep a hawk's eye on suspicious deals.
The Karnataka and Goa region of the department carried out a nationwide analysis, which found that the technological capital of the country - Bengaluru - tops the country in terms of the total amount/value of suspicious high value deals.
Bengaluru accounted for 2,47,002 crore worth of high value transactions during 2010-16, where PAN numbers were not quoted as required under the law.
"We took a serious note of this and warned sub-registrars at local revenue offices against conniving with big builders in the state and registering properties without mentioning the PAN number. Black money was big in real estate, so we had to focus on this sector," said an income tax commissioner, who preferred anonymity.
"As result, the directorate has managed to seize Rs 29.86 crore in cash including Rs 20.22 crore worth of new Rs2,000 notes, 41.6 kg of bullion and 14 kg jewellery since November 9, 2016," he said.
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