New Delhi, February 3: The Income Tax (IT) department on Saturday issued nearly two lakh notices to people who have deposited unaccounted amount during the demonetisation period in November 2016. Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sushil Chandra told ANI that notices have been sent to people who deposited Rs 15 lakh or more in their accounts but didn’t file returns during the government’s demonetization drive, which was aimed to uproot the menace of black money from the system.

"More than Rs. 15 lakh were deposited in accounts of certain individuals, for which no returns were filed. We have identified around 1.98 lakh such accounts and sent notices to the account holders in the months of December and January”, Sushil Chandra was quoted by ANI. The Chairman said that the department has not received any response on the same. “It is to be noted that failing to reply to these notices can lead to penalising by the IT department," he added.

Reports claim that around 3,000 prosecution cases were filed in the last three months across different areas, including tax evasion, delayed tax filing, abetment, and so on. Chandra informed that the IT department is now focusing on e-assessment to encourage the digitization process. The e-assessment process allows online tax filing and assessment, thereby reducing the need for taxpayers to visit the income tax office for the same.  Chandra informed that this year, the IT department introduced e-assessment on a trial basis and nearly 60,000 e-assessments were done in three months.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 03, 2018 05:31 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).