The nation’s top direct taxes body has asked its officers to provide suggestions to quicken the process to unearth unaccounted cash and book tax evaders. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is also looking for guidance to filter out unnecessary information to save productive time.

In a communication to staff, CBDT has sought suggestions on the management of complains about suspicious transactions reports (STRs) by the end of this month.“ In the last few years, the number of STRs has grown tremendously and is growing further and the department has not been able to investigate all STRs promptly,” CBDT said.

“It has been felt that while it is of paramount importance to take steps for better and quicker investigation in available STRs, it is important to identify, inter alia, the types of STRs that have been found not useful from direct tax point of view.” According to the department, the feedback from staff will be sent to the Financial Intelligence Unit to discontinue dissemination of unnecessary STRs. The unit is a central agency responsible for receiving, processing, analysing and disseminating information relating to suspicious financial transactions to enforcement agencies and foreign counterparts. “The recent office memorandum issued by the CBDT aims to streamline the process of data collection, dissemination and impact analysis of suspicions transactions,” said Kunal Gandhi, Partner at Mumbai-based tax and forensic consulting firm US Gandhi & Co. “Suspicious transactions usually constitute of bogus purchases or bogus sales, abnormal share premium received by a company, heavy cash deposits, offshore movement of funds and high-volume transactions with scam-hit companies.”

The department has been keeping a close eye on such transactions for over three years now, said a senior tax official. CBDT has sought information from staff on issues such as what were the kinds of information in STRs that were found to be not useful, cause of delay, what kind of corrective measures can be taken to improve quality of information and trends or modus operandi of tax evasion adopted in recent times. – www.economictimes.indiatimes.com