New Delhi sources stated that suspicious income tax refund claims have gone up in last three years and scrutiny assessments have been initiated against taxpayers claiming high refunds inconsistent with the pattern of income and investments, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. Accordingly Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha said there has been an increase in detection of suspicious refund claims.
Meanwhile the number of suspicious refund claims selected for scrutiny stood at 20,874 in 2018-19, 11,059 in 2017-18 and 9,856 in 2016-17. He said "Wherever after scrutiny the claim of refund was found to be inadmissible, the same was denied and consequential action of penalty and prosecution was taken based on the merits of the case”.
Moreover the minister said I-T Department has also incorporated certain risk parameters in its system which prevents refunds from being automatically cleared in cases where suspicious refund claims are made in tax returns, especially those which are filed from a single IP address or from a single locality or by a single intermediary. Shukla said “Collections in 2018-19 (up to January 2019) are at Rs 7.89 lakh crore, 13.4% higher than the collections during corresponding period of last year”.
