‘Most deposited Rs 2 lakh or more, some used one PAN for 20 accounts’

funds between Rs 2 lakh to less than Rs 2.5 lakh in multiple accounts, thinking these would not be caught. The government had initially said that tax department will not trouble people depositing up to Rs 2.5 lakh into their bank accounts, which is the exemption limit for each individual.

“(Rs 2.5 lakh exemption)... that was for genuine housewives, who may be having some savings... same name, same address mila hai, alag alag bank mein. All that computer can find out. Now, PAN is made compulsory . Everyone must do it before February 28.”

Adhia said the government has not issued any notices in these 18 lakh cases, but has asked the taxpayer to clarify about these on the electronic platform. It is possible that some or many of these could be genuine deposits and these depositors, he said, need not worry.

On Tuesday, the government launched the Swachh Dhan Abhiyan or Operation Clean Money and said it had identified 18 lakh persons who deposited amounts of Rs 5 lakh or more between November 9 and December 30 but whose income profiles did not match the amounts deposited.

Following up their efforts to unearth unaccounted money, tax authorities are also scrutinising these accounts and have asked taxpayers to revert to their queries within 10 days.

“So we are not saying you are are a criminal till they give the answer. They can only say, there may be mistakes also. It may have gone to a wrong person and he can say that I am exempt or he must have got a regularly paid income, there must be some mistake about it. It may not be his amount also, he can come and tell us that he doesn’t know who has deposited the money in his account. It may happen, so all these things will happen. But we are not considering them as criminals,” he said.

“That’s why we are giving them the first opportunity to reconcile online, without any notice also. It’s not even a notice, unlike what news reports said that 18 lakh people to get notice, it’s not notice. It’s just putting the data on the e-filing website in their e-filing account, put in their password and then see if there’s anything there,” he said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his Budget speech Wednesday, said that deposits between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 80 lakh were made in about 1.09 crore accounts with an average deposit size of Rs 5.03 lakh during the period November 8December 30. Also, deposits of more than Rs 80 lakh were made in 1.48 lakh accounts with average deposit size of Rs 3.31 crore, he said, adding that this data would help the government “immensely in expanding the tax net as well as increasing the revenues”. This results in a total of Rs 10.38 lakh crore deposits of more than Rs 2 lakh in each account.

While the government expects the demonetisation impact on the economy to be transient, this has given the government a warchest of data to widen the tax base significantly. “The main benefit (of demonetisation) which has come in is that money has lost its anonymity. We know exactly who is holding how much cash. It is a different thing that people have tried to fragment their cash into different accounts but we will try to map them on a computer and see what is happening. This will help us immensely,” Adhia said.