Project Insight

Project Insight is the income-tax department’s ambitious project to track tax evasion. The department is expected to launch the project from May 2017. Under this project, the IT department envisages to effectively utilize the vast amount of information at its disposal to effectively check tax evasion.

Key facts

• The tax department will set up a new centralised processing centre (CPC) for compliance management. This will help in ensuring that third party reporting by entities like financial institutions and banks is accurate and on time. It will also streamline data exchange mechanism for the other entities of the government.
• The new processing centre will handle preliminary verification and follow-up arising from information gathered under Project Insight.
• The project is proposed to be rolled out in three phases. The implementation of the first phase is expected to begin from May 2017.
• The new technical infrastructure created will also be leveraged for implementing Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act Inter Governmental Agreement (FATCA IGA) and Common Reporting Standard (CRS).
• For the implementation of this project, the IT department has signed a contract with L&T Infotech Ltd.

Significance

• It is expected to play a vital role in widening of tax base and data mining to track tax evaders.
• It will help to catch tax defaulters in a non-intrusive manner. With this project in place, it may not be necessary for the IT Department to resort to intrusive methods like search and seizure.
• It will promote voluntary compliance.
• The creation of new centralised processing centre would help taxpayers to resolve simple compliance related issues through online mode without the need to physically visit the income tax office.