60,000 people under I-T scanner

The Income Tax department has identified over 60,000 "high risk" persons for a probe under the second phase of the 'Operation Clean Money' which was launched Thursday to detect black money generation post demonetisation. The CBDT said the category of people who will undergo "detailed investigations" as part of the next phase of the operation include businesses claiming cash sales as the source of cash deposits, like petrol pumps and other essential services like hospitals, which is found to be excessive compared to their past profile or industry norms during the notes ban period.

It will also probe those government or Public Sector Undertaking employees who made "large cash deposits", people who have undertaken high-value purchases, those who "layered" or laundered funds by using shell companies and those who did not respond to taxman's queries under the first phase of the said operation.

A senior officer said there is no threshold of deposits that has been identified under the latest operation and all suspicious and similar inter-related transactions have been chosen and brought under it.

"The deposits under the scrutiny of the latest operation are no doubt high-value ones," he said.

The officer added that while the initial communication to these 60,000 people will go via the online medium, the taxman will also undertake search and survey action and also seek physical documents from the assessee as part of the operation. The threshold under the first phase of the operation, that began on January 31 and ended on February 15, was kept at deposits made to the tune of Rs 5 lakh and above.

"More than 60,000 persons, including 1,300 high-risk persons have been identified for an investigation into claims of excessive cash sales during the demonetisation period.

"More than 6,000 transactions of high-value property purchase and 6,600 cases of outward remittances shall be subjected to detailed investigations," the CBDT, policy-making body of the department, said in a statement.