The Union Budget 2019 made an announcement that pre-filled income tax return forms will be provided to taxpayers and this shall ease the process of accurate filing of a tax return. The pre-filled data will include all such details such as salary income, bank interest, dividends, tax deductions, capital gains from securities etc.

The relevant information concerning TDS and incomes will be aggregated from banks, stock exchanges, mutual funds, EPFO, state registration departments, etc.

In the current system, during the online tax filing of returns, personal and tax paid information are pre-populated. And this has been taken a step further as pre-populated tax forms will be made available to taxpayers entailing information extracted from their Form 26 AS, EPFO linked to their PAN and aadhaar, banks and other government bodies.

Also, the government proposed carrying out faceless scrutiny assessments

The government launched Project Insight aiming to promote a practice of judicious and fair tax administration as well as encourage voluntary tax compliance. Big Data analytics is being used for identifying tax evaders and an individuals' social media accounts are closely watched to find out differences in income declaration and general spending patterns if any.

Tax experts claim that through the implementation of 360-degree profiling, the IT department will gain access to access tax collection, tax base, taxpayers' compliance, TDS and third-party reporting.

Also, tax filing has been made mandatory for some of the high-value transactions including foreign travel spend for self or others over Rs. 2 lakh, electricity bill consumption of more than Rs. 1 lakh, deposits of more than Rs. 1 crore in current account and for individuals claiming tax exemption benefits on long-term capital gains.

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