40.72 lakh high spenders in the country under tax scanner

Over 40.72 lakh high value spenders are under the scanner of the Income Tax department which plans to check potential evasion instances before the closing of the financial year on March 31.

According to data, the department has information on 40,72,829 persons who had made cash deposits amounting to Rs 10 lakh or more in their saving bank accounts in the current fiscal. "With technical solutions at the department's disposal, there is a lot of information that is readily available to the authorities. "We just want to send the across the message that nothing in clandestine and the department would get to know every transaction especially high value ones," a senior I-T department official said.

Amongst other information that the department possesses is that 40,40,396 people who purchased mutual fund units of Rs 2 lakh or more, bonds or debentures of Rs 5 lakh or more, shares issued by companies of Rs 1 lakh or more and bonds issued by RBI of Rs 5 lakh and above.

The tax department's official data prepared recently also states that 15,55,220 persons purchased or sold immovable property worth Rs 30 lakh or more; 20,61,443 persons made payments of Rs 2 lakh or more in a year against their credit card bills; people who received interest income of Rs 50,000 and above from banks and people who purchased bullion or jewellery of Rs 5 lakh or more.

The I-T department, sources said, has also send notices for non-filing of taxes to close to 12 lakh people and entities even as many more such notices are in the offing.