18 lakhs post demonetisation defaulters in the IT net, notices issued

After waging a war on the black money hoarders, money launderers and the black marketeers of the country, despite stiff opposition from the Congress led UPA against the flagship initiative of prime minister Narendra Modi on 8th November invalidating the high denominational notes of 500and 1000, the process of bringing more and more money launderers in is in the offing with the Income Tax department of the country singling out a massive number of 18 lakh serious defaulters who’d tried to ditch the government authorities by illegally depositing unaccounted sum of money after 8th November till 29th December, later on clandestinely withdrawing the same from the banks and either not showing it in their income tax annual returns or not filing the returns at all.

This illegal money called the unaccounted black currency have been deposited in several parrallel accounts opened by these depositers in several names of their employees, relatives, family members or shell companies. After the demonetisation phase the government had claimed to have strengthened the nation’s falling economy by way of collecting more than15 lakh crores and filling the financial coffers but the opposition parties particularly the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the ruling political dispensation of befooling the people of the country by making lakhs of employees of the private sector unemployeed and giving a golden opportunity to the illegal money hoarders of the country make their myriad black currency into white and so on n so forth.

It may be recalled that after the sudden declaration of the invalidation of the higher currency bills of 500 and 1000 which comprised of 86% of the money in circulation, there was total chaos in the country with banks and ATMs full of unending queues resulting in more than 200 deaths nationally and small and medium bussinessmen/ entrepreneurs constrained to close down their ventures with lakhs of employees becoming jobless.

But despite all this the BJP under prime minister Modi’s leadership won hands down in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand etc given an unambiguous signal that finally all was well for the saffron party. The incometax department has issued notices and are minutely investigating about 18 lakhs bank accounts of the post demonetisation money launderers who’d deposited unaccounted or large sum of money without showing them in their annual IT returns ornot at all filing the same. However, after demonetisation the number of total income tax assesees have gone up to 3.7 crores during the year 2015, 16.

If we go by the official estimtes, about 17.73 lakh suspicious cases involving Rs3.68 trillion have been identified by the tax department in 23.22 lakh bank accounts post demonetisation. However 11.8 lakh people of 16.92 lakh bank accounts had responded to the department via online.
SUNIL NEGI