NEW DELHI: The government has made the linking of PAN with Aadhaar mandatory to get a 360 degree view of a person’s income and assets.
Now, to add flavors to the scrutiny, be it your shiny new luxury car on Instagram or a costly watch on Facebook, your updates may lead the taxman to your door as the tax department from next month will begin gathering virtual information to trace black money.
‘Project Insight’, likely to be launched next month, will use big data analytics to match information from social media sites to deduce mismatches between spending pattern and income declaration.
“The tax department will analyse mismatches in income declarations and spending patterns to trace tax evasions and black money,” an official said.
The tax department had last year signed a pact with L&T Infotech for the implementation of Project Insight, which is designed to strengthen the non-intrusive information driven approach for improving tax compliance.
“Currently, beta testing is on and the integrated platform for Project Insight should be launched by next month,” the official told PTI.
Project Insight has been initiated by the income tax department for data mining, collection, collation and processing of such information for effective risk management with a view to widen and deepen the tax base.
It will help the taxmen monitor high value transactions, and curb the circulation of black money.
The new technical infrastructure will also be leveraged for implementation of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Common Reporting Standard (CRS).
The project will use technology to allow the government collate databases of IT returns, IT forms, TDS/TCS statements and Statement of Financial Transactions received from financial institutions.