9.1 mn more came under tax net, revenue soared post note ban: Arun Jaitley

FM launches new website on 'Operation Clean Money' to bring illegal wealth on books

The number of persons under the tax net has increased by 9.1 million as unaccounted cash lost anonymity post note ban, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today.

Launching a new website on 'Operation Clean Money', a programme to bring illegal wealth on books, he said the November 8 decision to demonetise higher denomination currency had provided impetus to the move towards digitisation, raised the number of assessees, increaed tax revenue substantially as instilled fear of dealing in cash.

Stating that as many as 9.1 million persons have come under the tax net, Jaitley said he expects further increase in tax returns going ahead.

Post demonetisation, there has been a hike in collection of personal income tax, the finance minister said, adding that the new portal will help the honest tax payer.

CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra said there was 22 per cent growth in e-filed returns post demonetisation.

As many as 1.79 million people were identified for unexplained deposits post demonetisation, he said, adding the tax department has identified 100,000 suspected tax avoidance cases.

He also said that an undisclosed income of Rs 16,398 crore was identified post demonetisation.

"We identified around 17.92 lakh (1.79 million) persons in whose case the cash transactions did not appear in line with the taxpayers' profiles. And online verifications of these transactions are underway," Chandra said.

Of these 1.79 million, so far 972,000 individuals responded to SMSes and e-mails sent by the income tax department.