Arun Jaitley launches website on 'Operation Clean Money', says 91 lakh persons entered tax net post demonetization

The number of persons under the tax net has increased by 91 lakh as unaccounted cash lost anonymity post note ban, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday. 

Launching a new website on 'Operation Clean Money', a programme to bring illegal wealth on books, 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. Stating that as many as 91 lakh persons have come under the tax net, Jaitley said he expects further increase in tax returns going ahead.

Post demonetization, there has been a hike in collection of personal income tax, the finance minister said, adding that the new portal will help honest tax payer. CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra said there was 22 per cent growth in e-filed returns post demonetization. As many as 17.92 lakh people were identified for unexplained deposits post demonetization, he said, adding the tax department has identified one lakh suspected tax avoidance cases.
He also said that an undisclosed income of Rs 16,398 crore was identified post demonetization.

"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.