In an eight page directions issued today, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) asked the Income Tax Officers to ensure No Show Cause notice to taxpayers under Operation Clean Money during verification process.
The CBDT also directed that, It should be ensured that the communications made online with the persons under the verification should be in very polite language without containing any element of threat or warning.
The CBDT had launched Operation Clean Money on 31st January, 2017 to identify post-demonetisation deposits of large amounts. Initial phase of the operation involves e-verification of large cash deposits made during 9th November to 30th December 2016. Under this operation, email and SMS were sent to over 18 lakh taxpayers to submit their response on the e-filing portal.
The CBDT instruction stated that, the person under verification is not required to attend the Income Tax Office personally under any circumstance and at any stage during the verification exercise.
“The online verification should be focussed and limited to the issue under verification the outcome of which is either ‘Acceptable’ or ‘Non-Acceptable’. The queries raised should be relevant and limited in number since this is a preliminary verification process only”, it added.
The CBDT also directed that no independent enquiry or third party verifications are required to be made by the Assessing Officer outside the online portal. Whatever information is necessary during verification, the same has to be collected through the person under verification using online platform only. Even the telephonic queries are to be avoided.
The eight page first set of official guidelines issued by the Board with regard to the execution and assessment of the data received under this operation after taxpayers and others had raised doubts about possible harassment by the taxman.
Read the full text of the Instructions below.
