Mumbai: The Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance has intensified crackdown on black money and undeclared assets of taxpayers with the Income Tax (IT) Department and the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) widening probe into High Network Individuals (HNIs) investments overseas.
The independent investigations by the IT and ED has identified HNIs in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Surat and Delhi NCR holding assets in Europe and UAE not declared in the tax returns.
“The tax returns do not match with the government data for Black Money, PMLA and FEMA violations,” confirmed a senior tax official adding that data obtained through Automatic Exchange of Information under bilateral agreements was being analysed to prepare a list of high-risk cases.
Based on information received under bilateral and multilateral agreements and foreign remittance data, the Foreign Asset Investigation Unit (FAIU) of the Income Tax (I-T) had started a probe, under the Black Money Act, focusing on HNIs with undeclared bank accounts, cash-value insurance contracts, undeclared immovable property, capital assets, financial interest in any entity or business, custodial accounts, equity and debt investments and trusts abroad.
According to senior tax officials, over 138 cases of HNIs were identified for potential violations of FEMA for undeclared property held abroad via offshore companies in tax havens, especially those including the British Virgin Islands, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The anti money laundering probe revealed offshore companies set up solely to acquire and hold properties overseas without declaring the assets in tax filings.
Last year the tax department had launched a special window launched for voluntary disclosures of assets held abroad warning of penalties upto Rs 10 lakh on failure to disclose foreign assets/income in the ITR. The crackdown on black money led to Rs 22,000 crore of assets declared by tax payers during a drive against foreign assets in revised Income Tax Returns (ITR) filing before the 31 December 2024 deadline.
