Hyderabad: Do you have benami property or jewellery? To avoid income tax, did you hide information about your movable and immovable assets? The Centre’s benami transactions prevention Bill can lead to these properties being seized.
Income tax officials say there is a way to legalise benami properties through the Finance Act of 2016 apart from converting black money into white, by paying 45 per cent tax. An official from the Income-Tax department said that the proposed law on benamis would give officials powers to seize and acquire property.
“Besides this, the Income-Tax department will impose penalty based on the present market value in cases of benami properties purchased years ago. The respondent might have purchased a plot for Rs 10,000, 20 years back in the city’s outskirts, and now the value might have increased to Rs 20 lakh. We will consider the latest market value as per Section 197 (c) of the Income-Tax Act,” the official said.
He said that the Finance Act had given a last chance to owners of benami properties to declare the same by September 2016. “Once the owners declare their benami property by paying 45 per cent tax, they can change the ownership. They will have to change the ownership before September 30, 2017,” he said.
During a recent awareness campaign, principal commissioners of income-tax Susheel Kumar, B. Murali Krishna, S. Venkateswarlu and P.V. Rao had informed the Tax Bar Association of TS and AP that the I-T department would give a chance to pay the 45 per cent tax for undisclosed amounts in three installments — 25 per cent by November 30, another 25 per cent by March 1, 2017 and the remaining 50 per cent by September 30, 2017.
They had explained that the respondents would have to pay 30 per cent of income tax as usual along with 7.5 per cent of surcharge and another 7.5 per cent Krishi Kalyan cess. “Only income earned in legal ways will be accepted in this scheme. Income earned through corruption, smuggling and illegal ways will not be accepted,” they had said.
An official from the Central unit told said the department would organise an awareness campaign on July 28 at FTAPCCI. “All members from the Tax Bar Association, charted accountants and lawyers who deal with IT cases from both TS and AP will take part in the campaign. All principal commissioners of the I-T department will clarify doubts raised by the invitees,” the official said.
