CBDT's business intelligence data warehousing to boost tax mop-up

To enhance revenue realisation and catch tax evaders quickly, the Central Board of Direct Taxes is working on a comprehensive data warehousing system which will transform the functioning of the Income Tax Department.

From data pertaining to mobile users to electoral records and database of high net worth individuals, a universe of diverse information will be assembled in the I-T warehouse for analysis and generating credible information and reports for investigation purposes and revenue forecasting.

Information available with the ministry of corporate affairs, select data from excise and Customs and the Goods and Services Tax, customised data from think-tanks such as CMIE and data received from other enforcement agencies in India and abroad, will also be available at the facility, to be known as the Revenue Forecasting & Business Intelligence Data Warehouse (RFBIDW).

These external data would complement the internal database of the department which includes information on permanent account number (PAN), e-filing data, tax deducted at source, share transaction tax payments, annual information returns on high-value transactions and specific information gathered by the Central Information Branch.(Click here for table)

With this, RFBIDW is also expected to have certain locally relevant information, especially for investigation, and also specialised database on venture intelligence, trade analyst reports, equity analysis and fiscal reports.

According to an internal estimate of the department, the size to be handled by the I-T warehouse could be around four billion data pieces. The Integrated Taxpayer Database Management System alone has over 600 million pieces of information, mobile numbers would throw up around 1.2 billion data pieces and PAN database had 120 million entries. Besides, there would be local data and also information gathered from different sources.

A senior income-tax department official told Business Standard the idea behind RFBIDW was to shift attention from individual assessee to groups such as families, business groups, trades, dealers in particular items and intermediaries for curbing tax evasion.

He added the warehouse would be used to automatically create alerts on individuals, groups and businesses; which could serve as information, intelligence and policy inputs.

By using the warehouse, the risk assessment wing of the department would prepare and update the database created on suspect intermediaries and known offenders and also organised schemes of tax avoidance and evasion.

The official said the investigation unit of the department would be able to quickly develop a 360-degree profile of suspected tax evaders from RFBIDW information and intelligence. The forecasting section would prepare reports on the basis of RFBIDW data on the revenue potential in specific areas and provide inputs for policy decisions, said the official.