Reacting to voices of protest against searches at the homes of his predecessor P Chidambaram and his son as also RJD chief lalu Prasad, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said the day of reckoning has come for many.
The number of persons under the tax net has increased by 91 lakh as unaccounted cash lost anonymity post note ban, Jaitley said. launching a new website on “Operation Clean Money”, a drive to bring illegal wealth holders to book, he said the fallout of the November 8 decision to demonetise higher denomination currency has increased movement towards digitisation, number of assessees going up and tax revenue jumping as also fear of dealing in cash being instilled.
CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra said 17.92 lakh people were identified for unexplained deposits post demonetisation, he said, adding there was 22 per cent growth in e-filed returns post demonetisation. He also said that an undisclosed income of Rs 16,398 crore was identified post demonetisation.
“We identified around 17.92 lakh persons in whose case the cash transactions did not appear in line with the taxpayers’ profiles. And online verifications of these transactions are underway,” Chandra said.
Of the 17.92 lakh, so far 9.72 lakh individuals responded to SMSes and e-mails sent by the income tax department.