New Delhi:
Taxpayers who deposited Rs 2 lakh or more post demonetisation, will have to make this disclosure in the new Income Tax Returns (ITRs) forms notified on Friday.
The information is also to be furnished in the new one-page, simplified ITR-1 ‘Sahaj’ form for taxpayers who have income from salary, a house property or earn interest totalling up to Rs 50 lakh.
The ITRs forms for the assessment year 2017-18 were notified by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
Column Part-E of the ITR-1 form seeks information on cash deposits made by the assessee between November 9, 2016 and December 30, 2016 if the “aggregate cash deposits” during this period were Rs 2 lakh or more.
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A similar column has been provided in all the other six ITRs forms launched on Friday.
Giving the rationale behind the move, a senior official said “While the government has issued notices under Operation Clean Money after it detected certain large suspicious deposits by people, there could be other instances of deposits of over Rs 2 lakh being made.”
The government brought the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY) for disclosure of black money post note ban with heavy tax and penalty on the undisclosed income, but certain people may not have opted for it, the official said.
“Such cases where it is found that the cash deposits do not match a taxpayer’s profile could be probed after getting this information in the ITRs,” he said.
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The official said that the threshold of Rs 2 lakh has been fixed so that small taxpayers are not troubled.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the demonetisation move on November 8 last year under which the old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 note were rendered illegal tender.
The department has also made furnishing of the 12-digit Aadhaar number mandatory and if it is not available, the 28-digit Aadhaar enrolment id has to be mentioned in the ITR.
The CBDT, the policy-making body of the tax department, has also reduced the total number of ITRs forms to seven from the previous nine this time.The last date for filing ITRs for AY 2017-18 is July 31.
