Project Insight – Govt. of India’s official system to track your tax frauds & to carry out Income Tax raids through social media platforms – That’s sound pretty odd for you, but it’s true.
Let me clarify you – Do you like to post the images of your adventurous and luxurious trips on Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / etc? Are you addict of sharing images of your newly buy car or gadgets or any luxurious item on these platforms. Be cautious!
In future, you shall have to control your social media activities or else it might lead to an Income-Tax department raid at your home/office. Yeah! It’s true. Till date, if you are escaping for taxmen then the Project Insight is an online eye-watch to track your tax frauds on your social media platforms.
In this article you will get to know about the weapon that will be used by Project Insight to track your tax frauds.
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Official News
As per official claims, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government will soon launch a new warehouse of virtual information called Project Insight which will not only collect information from traditional sources like banks but also from social media sites.
Under this new system, income tax authorities will track posts on social media to determine if people’s spending patterns match their tax declarations. For its implementation, the IT department has already signed a contract with L&T Infotech Ltd.
In simple words, Income Tax Officials will be able to spot those who pay too little tax without raiding offices and homes as they currently do.
Beside this, the new technical infrastructure will also be leveraged for implementation of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act Inter Governmental Agreement (FATCA IGA) and Common Reporting Standard (CRS).
Project Insight + Track Tax Frauds
The Finance Ministry of India has been working on this project over the past 7 years and 1,000 crore is the approximate cost of the project. The project is in line with UK’s Connect, which is said to be complement the world’s largest bio-metric identity database to exploit technology to widen the tax base and curb down on tax evaders.
In other words, it is expected to help bridge the gap by automating most processes and cutting down time needed for resolution of tax evasion cases.
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Which weapon will be used in this project?
The Permanent Account Number (PAN) will be used as a weapon by the Income Tax Department to track the day-to-day financial transactions of people and then tally relevant data with the individual’s declared tax filings.
This will increase the Income Tax Department ability to monitor the flow of funds of high value transactions and curb circulation of money.
According to former CBDT chairperson Rani Singh Nair, India’s tax-to-GDP ratio is 17%, while for most Asian countries it is 24-25%.
