Prosecutions by tax dept up 127%

Jaitley says quality of representation of cases before courts must improve

The income tax department witnessed a whopping 127 per cent increase in prosecutions in 2013-14, compared to the previous year. The number of prosecutions launched during FY14 was 641.

In a meeting with officers of investigation wing in the tax department on Wednesday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was told that the success rate in convictions on prosecutions was 90.6 per cent.

Searches conducted by the tax department last year led to seizure of assets worth Rs 807.84 crore and admission of undisclosed income of Rs 10,791.63 crore, the finance ministry said in a statement.

The finance minister exhorted the officers to maximise the use of innovative and non-intrusive methods of investigation. He impressed upon the need for skill development and upgradation to keep pace with newer and innovative methodologies adopted to evade taxes.

“The finance minister observed that the quality of representation of cases of income tax department before various courts of law needs to be improved. He stressed upon devising mechanisms to attract the best talent and build expertise in specialised subject of taxation,” the statement quoted him as saying.

In a bid to widen and deepen the tax base, the department during 2013-14 undertook new projects for the collection and analysis of data from urban cooperative banks and cooperative credit societies, companies that have made open offers for the acquisition of shares and banks.

The analysis of data resulted in identifying a large number of new tax payers and additional incomes in the cases of existing taxpayers. The amounts in these categories are income of Rs 4,442 crore in the case of urban cooperative banks and cooperative credit societies, sale consideration of Rs 1,743.91 crore in the case of the project on open offer, where returns were not filed and income of Rs 1,383 crore in the case of project on banks.

Jaitley also impressed upon the need for imparting training to middle-level officers in order to improve their forensic skills to successfully deal with new tools of technology being used for tax evasions. He called for taking necessary steps to adopt the emerging methods of capacity building.

According to the statement, Jaitley emphasised that the department should equip itself with the state of the art technological skills, including in the area of analysis of digital evidence.

He was addressing a meeting of the directors general of income tax (investigation and intelligence & criminal investigation) and chief commissioners of income-tax (central).