By: Animesh Singh/IANS
New Delhi: The demonetisation exercise has led to the seizure of Rs 900 crore, including cash of Rs 636 crore and admission of undisclosed income of around Rs 7,961 crore through search, and seizure operations conducted by the Income Tax Department in 900 groups between November 2016 and March 2017.
According to Finance Ministry sources, demonetisation not only led to detection of black money, it also led to an increase in tax collection and widening of tax base.
Post the note ban exercise, when the government on the evening of November 8, 2016 suddenly announced discontinuation of 500 and 1,000 denomination of currency notes from the midnight hours of November 9, official sources have informed that for 2017-18, net direct tax collections witnessed a growth rate of 18 per cent over 2016-17, which was the highest in the preceding seven fiscal years.
As per the Finance Ministry data, the positive impact of demonetisation led to an increase in tax compliance in the country, as during 2017-18, personal income tax advance tax collections rose by 23.4 per cent while personal income tax self assessment tax rose by 29 per cent over 2016-17.
Sources said that this showed that demonetisation and the subsequent use of bank deposit data by the Income Tax Department had a major impact on voluntary tax payments by the non-corporate and individual taxpayers.
In addition to this, a growth of 25 per cent was achieved in the number of income tax returns (ITRs) filed during 2017-18, which was the highest rate achieved in the preceding five years, they added.
During 2017-18, the number of new ITR filers was about 1.07 crore as against 85.51 lakh during 2016-17, indicating higher levels of compliance due to transfer of cash into the formal channels as a result of demonetisation.
A growth rate of 17.2 per cent was achieved in the number of returns filed by corporate taxpayers during 2017-18. It was more than five times the growth rate of 3 per cent in 2016-17 and 3.5 per cent in 2015-16.