The Income-Tax department is planning to look into all suspected real estate deals to check involvement of black money component and tax evasion in such transactions in the past few years. The drive will begin in New Delhi and gradually extend to other metros.
“Property deals will be reviewed starting with Delhi and action will be taken in appropriate cases,” Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sudhir Chandra told reporters on Monday.
The I-T department has raided premises of many real estate developers, including the major players, in the past few years after it received many complaints of the involvement of black money in these deals.
Officials said they unearthed black money from most of the builders who were searched. The review will include both individuals and corporate property dealers. It will keep a watch on sources of funding for developers projects.
The cash component in property deals is expected to be in the range of 40-60 per cent, which goes unaccounted. For instance, if somebody has bought a house for Rs.50 lakh, its value could be just Rs.25 lakh on paper. This helps the builders evade tax on the cash amount.
The focus on real estate sector also assumes significance as the department is now after the ‘big fish’ rather than closely scrutinising the cases of small taxpayers. The amount of assets seized by the I-T department has more than doubled in the last four years, while the number of raids came down.
I-T department searched 529 groups in 2006-07. The number of searches dropped to 454 in 2007-08, 429 in 2008-09 and 409 in 2009-10.
