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Bengaluru emerges as major tax evasion hub

  •  Co-operative banks across Karnataka have become a highway for tax evasion
  • 11 lakh cases of illegal transactions were discovered in Bengaluru alone
Bengaluru emerges as major tax evasion hub

 

More than 36,000 credit co-operative banks across Karnataka have become a highway for tax evasion, opined Ravichandran, Head of 'Project Insight, an initiative of the Income Tax department.

 

Addressing a press conference on Thursday in the offices of the Income Tax department situated on Queen’s Road, Bengaluru, he said, "After Gujarat and Maharashtra, a large number of urban co-operative banks are situated in Karnataka, which record a high number of such transactions. Other than that, Bengaluru is second only to Delhi when it comes to large-scale real estate transactions." 

 

But strangely, he added, property-related transactions are happening in Bengaluru without any mention of a PAN number, which is mandatory.  

 

“Depositing of more than Rs. 10 lakh in a Bank requires the furnishing of PAN number, which is compulsory; failing to do so would amount to tax evasion. 15 lakh such cases of depositing funds without furnishing mandatory PAN number are traced in urban co-operative banks in the country between 2009 and 2016. Of which, 11 lakh cases are found out in Bengaluru alone,” he said.

 

P Sridhar, Senior Officer of Income Tax department remarked,"Details of such transactions have been obtained by the department from banks like ICICI, Corporation Bank, SBI.  Under the 'project insight', an initiative of the IT department, a whopping 90 lakh such tax evasion cases have been traced in the last six years."

 

"200 sub-registrars have been fined for underhand dealings in real-estate and property-related transactions. The IT department has been tracing such fraudulent transactions through innovative technology, and no one can escape tax liability," he opined.

 

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