India to go after travelling tax dodgers

(Taxation): Indian tax authorities are using a new data matching project to detect taxpayers who attempt to hide their assets and incomes in offshore tax havens. The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU), a department within the Income Tax Department (ITD) of India, is cooperating with the airlines, the Central Board of Excise and Customs, and even with travel agencies across the country to build a comprehensive database of Indian taxpayers traveling to countries considered by tax authorities to be tax havens. The collected data will be matched against the information provided by the taxpayer in their annual income tax returns, in order to find discrepancies and information mismatches.

In instances where the investigation leads to suspicion of illicit activity, the AIU has been granted powers to summon the taxpayer and request further details.Initially the AIU will comb their database to see if taxpayers have declared any expenses arising from their travels.

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