Rs 1-cr reward scheme becomes headache for IT Dept

After raising the reward for the people informing about the tax evasion, the Income-Tax Department is now being bombarded with calls, couriers and emails by the informants.

The officials, including the commissioner-level officers, in the department are continuously receiving complaints from the informants since June 1 - the day on which the department announced the revised scheme.

A week ago, the I-T Department issued the revised Income Tax Informants Reward Scheme, under which a person was eligible for up to Rs 1 crore as the reward for giving specific information for substantial evasion of tax and up to Rs 5 crore for Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets.

A Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) official, on the condition of anonymity, told ANI, "Within one week, we got more than 500 calls regarding this reward. We are getting these unwanted calls, offices are filled with the couriers containing the information claiming evasion of tax."

Another official said, "We had examined emails and complaint letter, most of the complaints we are forwarding to concerned investigation department. But, the interesting fact is that many of the information seems like settling the scores. Some of the complaints are more than 500 pages. These complaints have court cases documents too."

Though it has become a headache for the department, the official added that the response has been quite encouraging too.