I-T Department digs deep, explores unusual sources for info gathering

It is happening across businesses and states, with the taxman snooping around for transaction details with organisations in financial services, hospitality, healthcare, real estate, manufacturing, and those linked to telecom and direct-to-home services.

The aim is to collect evidence of tax evasion, misreporting, and racketeering by verifying various dealing records with the claims made by individuals and entities, under the scrutiny of the I-T Department.

«The request for information spans multiple sectors, highlighting an increased dependence on third-party information, documents, and confirmations,» said Ashish Karundia, founder of CA firm Ashish Karundia & Co.

Use of Sec 133(6) Multiplies

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For instance, some of the fund houses have been asked to give investment details and mode of payment by persons who are under the lens of the tax department; property buyers have received notices to spell out the deal size to match the figures in the builders' books; hotels were told to confirm whether organisations in question had indeed booked and paid for the seminar halls they claimed they had; telecom and DTH vendors have been asked to corroborate large data purchases, while some of the service providers selling stents (for angioplasty) to hospitals have to give margin details amid suspicion of a rampant practice by many hospitals who set up front companies to hold the 'excess margin' from stent and medical equipment distributors who are forced to make payoffs and thus accept a lower margin to grab orders. Notices, connected to hospitals, were also sent to some of the doctors referring the patients.


Such notices for fishing out information on assessees from multiple sources are issued under Section 133(6) of