The regional and rural banks operating in the northeastern region would have to submit the details of cash deposits to the Directorate of Income tax by January 31, this year.
A senior official of the Directorate of Income Tax said this here on Tuesday and said that the Directorate of Income Tax (Intelligence and Criminal Investigation) has also decided to organise an outreach programme on Wednesday to sensitize these cooperative banks and rural banks in the region.
“The new obligation is to furnish to the Income Tax Department a statement of financial transactions (SFT) by January 31, 2017 in respect of cash deposits made by account holders between November 8 to December 30, 2016,” said the official, adding that all the banks, including cooperative banks and post offices have to furnish details of cash deposits by persons for amount involving Rs12.5 lakh or more in current accounts and Rs2.5 lakh or more in accounts other than current accounts.
It may be mentioned here that there are more 31 cooperative and rural banks having their head offices in the northeastern region and all of them would be required to furnish the details of such cash deposits.
Huge amount of cash has been deposited by account holders in the post demonetisation period, which is roughly estimated to be over Rs600 crore deposited in over 4000 accounts and a large per centage of which could be from unrecorded sources.
“The income tax department would use this information for conducting inquiries in select cases for ascertaining the source of such deposits and whether these deposits are from explained and recorded sources or not,” he said.