IT Department to probe 20,572 tax returns

New Delhi Nov 7: The Income Tax Department will probe 20,572 tax returns after suspecting discrepancies in incomes before and after demonetisation, official sources said.

The department has said that it has identified one lakh 'high risk' cases of alleged tax evasion for detailed investigation.

Officials have said that "a scrutiny procedure in the I-T department parlance denotes submission of a volume of records and testimonials, after which the taxman or the assessing officer makes sure that the return filed is correct and the filer has not evaded any tax."

Earlier this year I-T department has initiated 'Operation Clean Money' on January 31 this year to check black money and stash funds in the wake of the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the two highest value banknotes of the time, from circulation on November 8 last year.

The Department has already served notices to 18 lakh suspicious persons for depositing huge amounts of cash in bank accounts. The department has conducted 900 searches between November 9, 2016 and March this year, leading to seizures of assets worth Rs 900 crore, including Rs 636 crore in cash.