Post demonetisation, tax officials detected Rs 5,400 crore of black money, carried out over 1100 searches

Tax officials detected Rs 5, 400 crore of undisclosed income across 1100 searches and surveys, post demonetisation.

Soon after cash ban, the Income Tax department started verifying accounts and penalised people whose tax profiles were not in line.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Rajya Sabha that more follow-up action was taken and 18 lakh people were identified whose tax profiles were not in line with the cash deposits made by them in the demonetisation period and online responses were sought.

"Post-demonetisation, during the period November 9, 2016 to January 10, 2017, more than 1100 searches and surveys were conducted by the Income Tax Department, apart from issuing more than 5100 verification notices in the cases of suspicious high value cash deposits or related activities,” said Jaitley during the Question Hour.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) verified the exact amount that was deposited during the demonetisation period and the precise figure would be presented before the nation.

"Seizure in cash in new currency was about Rs 110 crore. The undisclosed income detected in these actions was more than Rs 5400 crore," Jaitley said.

He said that the IT Department had undertaken "Operation Clean Money" to leverage Technology and data analytics for verification of deposits during the demonetisation period.

"Till February 2017, while 23064 searches and survetys were conducted (IT 17525, Customs 2509, Central Excise 1913, Service Tax 1120), more than Rs 1.37 lakh crore of undisclosed income/tax evasion was detected (IT 69434, Customs 11405, Central Excise 13,952, Service Tax 42727). Simultaneously criminal peroceedings were launched in 2814 cases (Income Tax 1966, Customs 526, Central Excise 293, Service Tax 29) and 3893 persoms were placed under arrest (Customs 3782, Central Excise 47, Service Tax 64)," the minister said.