I-T probes income discrepancies in affidavits filed by MPs, MLAs

The Income Tax department is scrutinising the election affidavits filed by political party candidates who have become Members of Parliament or Legislative Assemblies—affidavits that contain details of their movable and immovable assets.

This exercise, which has been going on for some months now and is at present in its last leg, is being undertaken to find whether the information submitted in the affidavit by the candidates matches the income that they have declared in the past or whether there are discrepancies with the intention to hide undeclared “income”.

As part of the exercise, I-T officials are also trying to find out whether any politi- cian had evaded any tax in the past or had not declared any material information in the new affidavit, which he or she had declared in past affidavits.

Officials said that the entire exercise, once completed, will later be used to issue notices to the people’s representatives, asking them to explain the discrepancies and if they are not able to give a valid justification, the department will register cases against them.

Officials said that the verification of the affidavits of the politicians will help the department assess if they had paid appropriate taxes as declared in their statements with the two different authorities, i.e., one while filing their annual income tax return with the I-T department and the other they filed with the