The realty sector is again in focus. With the sector prone to heavy tax evasion, the income-tax department is likely to scrutinise tax returns of all real estate players be it a property dealer or a builder with annual turnover of Rs 5 crore in the current financial year.

A decision in this regard was recently taken as part of the annual action plan of the department to take measures for meeting direct tax collection target of Rs 2,67,490 crore and unearth black money in realty sector. It may be pointed that tax collection from builders has gone up after the department conducted raids on some of them during the last financial year.

The returns of these builders would be selected for scrutiny and they could be asked to explain the source of income, net profit and tax deduction at source (TDS). They could also be asked to disclose details of income and expenditure during the past three years. It has also come to our notice that many builders are selling flats by taking money partly in cash, and not disclosing it in the annual returns, a department source said.

He said though many builders were taking money from home buyers in advance, they show income in tax returns only after the completion of projects. Information collected from banks was collated in this regard, he said.

Apart from this, those who show a loss from house property of more than Rs 2.5 lakh could also come under the tax scanner . The I-T department is also likely to scrutinise all those cases, where refunds are more than Rs 25 lakh in a year.