Criminal prosecution higher than expected, says Income Tax Department

The Income Tax department on Tuesday said that in the current financial year till January 2017, there have been in total of 570 prosecution complaints recorded before the Criminal Courts.

It said that the number of complaints is much higher than 196 complaints filed during the corresponding period of last financial year. Majority of person have been prosecuted for offence under section 276 CC for not Filing return of income followed by offence under section 276B for not depositing TDS in government accounts in time.

Prosecution has also been done against the willful attempt to evade taxes etc. Investigation in undisclosed foreign assets like HSBC, ICIJ, Panama papers etc have led to filing of large numbers of prosecution complaints.

In addition to prosecution complaints filed, Income tax department has received 1195 applications praying for compounding of offences committed by persons. This is almost double the number of the application filed during corresponding period in the last financial year.

Filing of the compounding application requires admission of the offence. Investigation in manipulation done post demonetisation have led to detection of large numbers of suspect cases.

While pursuing non intrusive online verification process, many cases of serious irregularities are likely to culminate into criminal prosecutions. Many tax payers had opted for Pradhanmantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY) with a view to avoid hard consequences of penalties and prosecutions. PMGKY window ends on 31st March.