‘High spenders’ beware, the tax man is watching

If you have deposited more than Rs 10 lakh in your savings bank account or have bought shares worth more than one lakh rupees, beware. The taxman is watching you.

The income tax department is scanning the records of 4.07 million people who have made cash deposits upto Rs 10 lakh in their bank accounts in the current financial year for potential instances of tax evasion.

"With technical solutions at the department's disposal, there is a lot of information that is readily available to the authorities. We just want to send across the message that nothing is clandestine and the department would get to know every transaction especially high value ones," said a senior I-T department official.

The official added that the I-T department had sent notices for non-filing of taxes to around 1.2 million people and firms and more such notices are in the offing.

In fact, the IT department is also armed with the data of around 4 million people who had purchased mutual fund units of Rs 2 lakh or more, bonds or debentures of Rs 5 lakh or more, shares issued by companies of Rs 1 lakh or more and bonds issued by RBI of Rs 5 lakh and above.

The taxman also has data about 1.55 million people who purchased or sold immovable property worth Rs 30 lakh or more, 2.06 million people who made payments of Rs 2 lakh or more in a year against their credit card bills, and people who received interest income of Rs 50,000 and above from banks.