CBDT’s new data mining tool to help check tax evasion

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is coming with a new data mining tool known as the Income Tax Business Application from next year. The application would allow assessing all PAN-based information about a taxpayer at one click. The application would be able to access financial transaction profiles easily, according to an Economic Times report.

"The Income Tax Business Application, once ready, will vastly improve data mining and business intelligence of the department and the taxman," CBDT chairperson Anita Kapur told reporters on Tuesday.

Kapur said: "It will be a robust database which will include all sorts of financial transactions data of an entity including human intelligence collected on a person or entity."

This new "smart and intelligent" database will help data mining and will include all financial transactions of individuals and entities and help check evasion.

The Tax department is looking to make the process of paying taxes simple and provide immediate redressal to tax payers for their problems, Kapur said.

She said the department is on a drive to widen the tax net. "If you do not take action against evaders, then the message going out is the tax department is allowing people who should be in the tax net to remain outside," she said.

The CBDT chairperson further said tax evasion is not only a menace, it also spoils the compliance culture because those who pay taxes feel the system is unfair.

"This (not catching the evader) will encourage a system where a person who is outside the tax system will continue to remain outside the tax system," Kapur said, adding that there was a large constituency that's not covered under the tax deduction at source (TDS) regime like small traders.
(Image: Indiatimes)