I-T department issued over 5,000 notices, recovered Rs 4,200 crore cash since demonetisation

Post demonetisation, Income Tax department (I-T) has been really busy and stepped up its drive against those converting "black money" into "white". It has issued over 5,000 notices and detected undisclosed income of close to Rs 4,200 crore since November 08.

After November 8th, about 1,000 surveys and search and seizure operations were conducted across the country.

Between December 22 and 28, over 200 such operations were undertaken, data available with the department showed.

While surveys involve scrutiny of books, cash and other assets, search and seizure are referred to as raids in common parlance.

Rs 105 crore out of Rs 458 crore cash seizures, is a tad under a quarter, was in new currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000, indicating the widespread use of banking and cash mules to convert old currency into new ones, which is stored as cash in offices and homes.

The move mounted through field offices is meant to identify those who used various tools - from depositing in banks to buying gold and jewellery soon after PM Narendra Modi announced demonetisation on November 8 - to try and protect their unaccounted wealth which was stashed away in the form of cash.

Cash holdings are only a part of the black money with purchase of benami property and investments in gold and real estate being other tools.

The tax department has deployed a multi-pronged approach, which involves detailed splicing of data received from banks and other sources and then sharing the numbers with the field offices.