Income-Tax Department expands into new areas to combat tax evasion

To combat tax evasion, the Income Tax Department is expanding into “new areas” of the economy.

Analytics are being used by investigation units to sift through massive amounts of data on Indians with assets abroad.

The CBDT chief stated that India was also receiving “large” data from various countries via the CRS (common reporting standard) and FATCA (foreign account tax compliance act).

The Income-Tax Department has completed over 2.8 lakh cases under the government’s faceless assessment scheme (FAS) launched in 2019-20.

The amount of information shared by foreign jurisdictions as part of mutual tax cooperation is enormous, and the tax department must sift through it to find actionable cases.

All data received up to 2019 is being examined by the department’s investigation units.