₹3.12 lakh crore property deals under Income Tax dept scanner

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like The Income Tax Department’s surveys and spot verifications in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have revealed over 2.5 lakh property transactions worth ₹3.12 lakh crore in this region in the last one year that were either not reported or reported with the wrong PAN details, familiar with the development said. SROs are statutorily required to report details of all immovable property transactions exceeding ₹30 lakh (Unsplash)The numbers, which likely point to so-called “black” money , were significant in Gurugram, Chandigarh, Faridabad, Sonepat, Karnal and a few other districts, the people added, asking not to be named. Section 285BA of the Income Tax Act requires reporting authorities including the banks, sub-registrar offices (SROs), NBFCs, mutual funds, etc to submit Statement of Financial Transactions (SFTs) with regard to high-value transactions, payment of interest, dividend and other related transactions undertaken by taxpayers, along with their Permanent Account Number (PAN). SROs are statutorily required to report details of all immovable property transactions exceeding ₹30 lakh. The information is then matched with income tax returns. “The directorate of intelligence and criminal investigation, a unit within the IT  department, carried out total 42 spot verifications -- mostly at the Tehsil offices -- in the north-west region and involving the states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and union territories of J&K, Chandigarh and Ladakh in 2025-26. The main purpose was to detect and address irregularities in the reporting of high-value financial transactions by designated Reporting Authorities,” said one of the people, an officer in the department. “The field verifications and analysis of data from existing records revealed that SROs didn’t report at all or provided wrong PAN details for a large number of property transactions above ₹30 lakh in value,” he added. Another person cited above, also in the department, said that the IT department has detected “over 2.50 lakh such property transactions -- several of them recorded at Tehsil offices in Gurugram, Faridabad, Sonepat, Chandigarh, several districts of Punjab -- and the estimated value of these transactions is ₹3.12 lakh crore.” The IT department is learnt to have launched a similar campaign in other parts of the country as well. Although the data has not been compiled centrally, officials hinted that such questionable transactions all over India may be worth over ₹7.50 lakh crore. “It is not known if officers in SROs are involved with taxpayers in all these cases but such incomplete or erroneous reporting renders the data ineffective for the purposes of tax verification and significantly hampers the IT department’s ability to track high-value transactions and ensure proper tax compliance,” the second officer added. Following the revelations, the department is learnt to have engaged with SROs and other reporting authorities asking them to provide accurate and complete PAN information while recording property transactions and also inform it about all high-value deals. The people cited above said that fines have been imposed on several officers in SROs and more action may follow if they don’t follow the rules. Ashish K Singh, managing partner at Capstone Legal, said : “It is rare to see one government department (Income Tax) imposing a fine on another government department (SRO) for a violation of a Central Act. Although the fine is not hefty, it sends a message to SROs across India to comply with the law.”