Income Tax Return | ITR : Have you hidden your income some from Income Tax Department? You may get notice, have you hidden some of your income from the Income Tax Department? You may get notice

New Delhi: Recently, several individuals and companies, who have withheld some income from the Income Tax Department, have come to the notice of the tax authorities after a detailed investigation based on data analytics and machine learning and robust data sharing among various tax authorities. went. According to a report in Economic Times, the government has used data from the last two financial years to prepare an audit checklist. Over the years, tax departments have used Big Data Analytics. The tool is used to detect outliers in any industry, and the difference between industry-based average taxes is used to set targets for further investigation. In July, the indirect tax department issued notices to several individuals and companies after they found discrepancies in their income tax and indirect tax filings.

Note that in the past the Direct Taxes and Indirect Taxes departments operated independently and did not share data. However, the government’s big data push over the past few years has meant that both departments are sharing data with each other. This has led to deeper analysis and more tax notices and investigations, the publication noted, citing industry trackers. This year, however, notices have also been issued to some lawyers – who are out of the purview of indirect tax.

The tax notice specifically mentions that if the recipient falls under any of the exempted categories (like lawyers), they should give some additional information about their exemptions and not paying tax.

Business Daily quoted Abhishek A Rastogi, partner of Khaitan & Co, a law firm, as saying that tax officials are relying on artificial intelligence and data to gather information about tax leakages. While this is certainly good for tracking down tax evasion, unnecessary notices should be avoided to increase the ease of doing. Earlier also, data mining by the tax department had revealed that some companies were invoicing their customers or selling their goods in cash.

As various government departments start sharing data, the income tax department has also started to trace properties of benami properties or immovable property purchased in fictitious names. After a data analytics-based probe appears to be a trigger, the tax department has started issuing notices to owners of benami real estate properties, ET first reported on March 11.

Informed people said insiders said that the notices are also a result of the data mining exercise carried out by the tax department. Earlier different government departments did not even talk to each other, now they have been made to share data.