The Income Tax (IT) department will launch full-fledged assessment proceedings from January next year against those assessees who have deposited “suspicious” amounts of money in banks post-demonetisation, but have not filed their income tax returns (ITRs) till now.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), which frames policies for the department, has asked the taxman to finish the process of serving notices to such entities by December 31.
“The department will initiate full-fledged assessment proceedings against these assessees from the later part of January, after the replies to the IT notices are received. The cases, where the replies to the notices have been received, are now being analysed,” a senior official said.
Those who attempted to show their black income as white and evaded tax would be prosecuted, he added.
The action is a part of the Operation Clean Money (OCM), initiated by the department early this year to specifically check black money instances in the wake of demonetisation.
The department, on the basis of data analytics and information gathered during the first phase of online verification under the OCM, has prepared a list of about 18 lakh assessees, who had deposited substantial amounts of cash in their bank accounts during the demonetisation period (November 8-December 30, 2016), but are yet to filed the ITRs for assessment year 2017-18.