Income Tax Department launches Operation Clean Money-II

The Income Tax department has launched the second phase of the ‘Operation Clean Money’ to investigate over 60,000 individuals with an aim to detect black money generation post demonetisation. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy-making body of the income tax department has detected flow of black money into the banks amounting to over Rs 9,334 crore between November 9, 2016 and February 28 this year.
Under the second phase of Operation Clean Money, more than 60,000 persons including 1,300 high risk persons has been identified for detailed investigation. The department has deducted more than 6,000 transactions of high value property purchase and 6,600 cases of outward remittances.
The first phase of ‘Operation Clean Money’ was launched on January 31, 2017. In the first phase, the department went through e-verification of large cash deposits into the banks after the demonetisation and had sent online queries and investigated around 17.92 lakh persons.

Significance

• This operation will help in eliminating black money and widen the tax base.
• The impact of the operations carried out by the income tax department has resulted in a 21.7% increase in the income tax returns in the financial year 2016-17. Also, 16% growth in the gross collection has been observed, which is the highest in the last five years. Besides, 14% growth in net collection has been realized, which is the highest in the last three years.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2017