CBDT steps up drive against tax dodgers, sets targets for Income Tax dept

New Delhi: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has directed the field formations of the Income Tax Department to step up the drive against black money and tax evasion with a comprehensive time-bound strategy to bring unreported and under-reported businesses into the tax net.

The CBDT sees a potential of unearthing undisclosed income to the tune of a staggering Rs 2.4 lakh crore during the current financial year, according to a media report.

Each jurisdiction of the Income Tax Department has been asked to conduct at least one major search and seizure operation by July 31, and a minimum of two more between August and March 2026, the NDTV Profit report stated.

The board has directed that 60 per cent of the total target be achieved through intrusive initiatives like searches and raids, while 40 per cent must come from non-intrusive investigations which involve data analysis and financial intelligence.

As part of the strategy, the CBDT has directed the Investigation Wing of the Income Tax Department to prepare focused, data-backed reports on sectors which are prone to tax evasion and in which sufficient information has not been disclosed. These sectors could stretch across manufacturing, services, mining, liquor trade, international trade, hawala, healthcare, scrap dealing, and other ancillary or unregulated domains, according to the report.

Mentioning a lack of visibility into informal transactions, the CBDT reportedly said there is a pressing need to study sectors where the volume of unreported or underreported activity is high, and to design strategies for formalisation and better compliance.

The new push comes as part of a comprehensive plan to bring elusive businesses, that escape the taxman’s lens due to limited availability of data, into the tax net and increase the country’s revenue collections.

Meanwhile, India’s direct tax collections for the fiscal year 2024-25 have exceeded their targets, according to the Finance Ministry’s latest figures. The provisional net direct tax collections reached Rs 11,82,875 crore, representing a 17 per cent increase over the previous fiscal year. The tax buoyancy factor, an indicator of the growth rate of direct taxes relative to GDP growth, stood at 1.57, up from 1.54 in the 2023-24 which reflects the strong fiscal health of the country.

–IANS