Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has invested in data analysis technology to sniff out tax evadersIndian tax authorities have intensified a crackdown on alleged tax evaders, benefiting from big data analyses that makes it easier to spot compliance gaps and as revenue pressure looms before the end of the financial year in March. Picture: BLOOMBERG
The goods and services tax authority in Mumbai is investigating cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s local unit WazirX after it discovered alleged tax evasion of over 400-million rupees . In a separate investigation, income tax authorities on December 21 conducted nationwide searches on some unidentified foreign-controlled mobile handset manufacturers and found two firms inflated expenses and made unsupported remittances of more than 55-billion rupees towards royalty payment.
“Raids and searches are intrusive but we are likely to see more such action now as the government will move towards more risk-based tax audits and surveys owing to the deployment of sophisticated big data analytics and deeper data mining,” said Amit Maheshwari, managing partner at Ashok Maheshwary & Associates.