Govt’s black money account got 45K emails

Since December, taxmen have received about 45,000 emails from whistleblowers seeking to give information on black money or those trying to convert their ill-gotten cash into legitimate wealth.

The government, after the announcement of the demonetisation exercise in November last year, set up an email account — blackmoneyinfo@incometax.gov.in — to encourage citizens to pass on information about black money and demonetisation. But the exercise has not yielded the desired result, sources said. It turned out that only about 6,000 of these emails are genuine and have specific information about people hoarding illegal cash and of this, 4,000 pertained to demonetisation.

In December, just after it was set up, the I-T department received 22,500 emails on illegal cash hoarders. In January, the number dropped to 6,900. In February and March, the numbers stood at 3,465 and 3,000. In June only 1,082 mails came in.

“Most of the emails are general in nature, which do not require any action. The tax department has gone through every mail and only about 6,000 have turned out to be of importance,” a senior government official, who did not wish to be identified, told HT.

Revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia said information received would be monitored by a cell of the I-T department and acted upon immediately. “The department will act on whistleblowers’ information only if it has weight; no action will be taken based on general information...there could have been mails sent from various IDs as part of a vindictive agenda,” the official said. But tax officials said searches will continue.