700,000 people get I-T letters over PAN-less transactions

NEW DELHI: The income tax department on Thursday asked all those who have carried out high-value transactions without quoting their PAN details to come clean and

NEW DELHI: The income tax department on Thursday asked all those who have carried out high-value transactions without quoting their PAN details to come clean and own up, or face action.

HT Image

The tax department has collated 9 million such transactions from 2009 till now where people have not disclosed their PAN details. Of these, about 100,000 transactions have been found to be worth around Rs 1 crore each.

Under current rules, hotel bills above Rs 50,000, property deals worth more than Rs 30 lakh, cash deposits of more than Rs 10,00,000 in savings bank account and air tickets and tour package bills worth more than Rs 50,000 come under “high-value” transactions that require mandatory quoting of the PAN details.

Permanent account number (PAN) is a unique 10-digit alpha-numeric code allotted to tax payers. The tax department will first issue 7 lakh letters to people who have carried out about 1.4 million “non-PAN” transactions.

An I-T department analysis has found these transactions as “high-risk”, implying a greater chance of tax evasion.

The information has been collated from banks, property registration authorities and third-party sources such as car sellers, hotels, travel agents and realty brokers.

“The department will be issuing letters to the parties of these transactions requesting them to provide their PAN number,” a finance ministry statement said. “The department will initiate further necessary actions in those cases where no replies are received.”

The move is part of the government’s strategy to clamp down on the parallel cash economy that operates outside regulatory boundaries.

“We will certainly like to give them an opportunity to come clean. People should avail themselves of this window. We want to say that we have this database and we will make them aware about this. The option is with them (to use the income declaration scheme or not),” Atulesh Jindal, chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), had said recently.