Operation Clean Money is to detect the generation of black money after demonetisation. Operation Clean Money, CBDT said, is being conducted by the tax department through the use of advanced data analytics allowing "optimisation of government resources and causing minimum inconvenience to the taxpayers.
2nd Phase
- The income-tax department has identified more than 60,000 persons, some of them described as "high-risk”, under the second phase of Operation Clean Money.
- Entities that will undergo "detailed investigations” as part of the next phase of the operation include businesses claiming cash sales as the source of cash deposits, such as petrol pumps and other essential services like hospitals, which are found to be excessive compared with their past profile or industry norms after the note-swap was announced on November 8.
- It will also probe government or public sector employees who made "large cash deposits” as well as people who made high-value purchases, "layered” or laundered funds by using shell companies and who did not respond to queries under the first phase of the operation.
- All the cases where no response is received shall also be subjected to detailed enquiries. It may take more than a year to complete but technology and continuous enforcement action will be deployed to ensure no one slips through the net.
1st Phase
- The threshold under the first phase of the operation, which began on January 31 and ended on February 15, was kept at deposits of Rs 5 lakh and above.
- More than 400 cases have been referred by the tax department to the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation). Surveys have been conducted in more than 3,400 cases by assessment units.
- Online queries were raised in 35,000 cases and online verification was completed in more than 7,800 cases. The department closed verification when a satisfactory explanation was given.
- In cases where the cash deposit has been declared under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), the verifications would also be closed.
Demonetisation was aimed at the elimination of black money that casts a long shadow of parallel economy on our real economy and the latest operation is one of the major steps aimed at achieving this goal and also widen the tax base.
