R. Sharan (left), director-general of income-tax (investigation), east, with MCC president Santosh Saraf in Calcutta on Saturday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, July 22: Search and seizure by the income-tax department have unearthed an undisclosed income of Rs 87 crore in the Bengal circle alone in the assessment year 2005-06.

“This was three times the amount declared in the year before,” said R. Sharan, director-general of income-tax (investigation), east, on the sidelines of a workshop on search and seizure organised by the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce here today.

The amount is a collective figure of 25 people against whom the tax department served notices and carried out search operations for holding disproportionate assets and for tax evasion.

The taxmen in the Bengal circle have carried out 15 or 16 such intrusive operations in the previous fiscal and the department expects it will lead to a greater disclosure of income than in the previous year.

“However, we take intrusive measures such as search and seizures as sparingly as possible and that too after much analysis of information and deliberations among us. We convince ourselves that there are reasons enough to carry out such operations. Our searches these days are so rare that there are disclosures of income or assets after every such operation,” Sharan said.

“Gone are the days when tax sleuths would act upon the tip-off of informers to nab tax-evaders,” he added.

To get to them, the sleuths rely more on the information available through income tax returns and annual information reports (AIR) filed by the assessees and third party information through tax information network (TIN) from banks, mutual funds and other such sources.

While the number of searches and seizures by the income-tax department has come down significantly over the last couple of years, the number of notices served by the department has gone up significantly.

The department has recently sent out notices to a number of politicians and film stars.

The income-tax department has also turned its focus on professionals like astrologers and private educational institutions.

“According to our information, certain astrologers have undisclosed income comparable with the disclosed income of some industrialists,” Sharan said.

“There are 3.5 crore people in the country with an annual income of over Rs 10 lakh, but less than a lakh of them file income-tax returns. We’re going to act upon them in a big way,” he said.

The income-tax department will depend on the AIR-based information to book such people, Sharan added.

“Many transactions are generated and done, but are not disclosed for tax purposes,” he added.

“We are also keeping an eye on private educational institutions,” he said. “Many such private engineering, medical and management institutes have an income over Rs 5 crore a year from capitation fees.”

In May this year, the income-tax department had sent notices to 80 such institutes in Pune.