Mumbai: At the time of demonetisation on November 8 last year, there were 5 crore taxpayers in country. More than six months after the 'abrupt' recall of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes, the number now stands at 5.91 crore. It means India has added 91 lakh more taxpayers to its kitty.
The Narendra Modi government withdrew legal tender status of Old High Denomination or OHD currency notes as part of its massive crackdown against black money, tax evaders and counterfeiting of Indian currency notes. In recent years, the menace has plagued the Indian economy drastically.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday listed out benefits of note ban that had caused hardships to common men in its initial days of implementation last year. He further reiterated government's commitment towards transforming India into a fully tax compliant society from a non-tax compliant one.
Jaitly said that income tax department has issued some 2-3 lakh new permanent account number or PAN cards everyday since anti-black money drive was started on November 8 last year. I-T department issued only 1 lakh PAN cards everyday before note ban.
The government has also started Operation Clean Money website that wants to expose tax offenders in different avatars. OCM was launched to drag hidden, unccounted or illegal wealth back to the economic system and to start punitive actions against tax offenders.
Finance Minister Jaitley added tax department managed to identify 18 lakh people through a deeper scrutiny of bank deposits made after high value notes were banned.
Apart from that the government has also singled out transactions that were done post notes ban and that do not match with cash profile of taxpayers. All the details like raids by income tax department, names of tax offenders and black money hoarders would be put online.
