Income Tax technologically gearing up to step up search operations

Income Tax technologically gearing up to step up search operations in coming months NEW DELHI, AUG 17, 2008 : INVESTIGATION in search & seizure cases is a powerful tool in the hands of Income Tax Department. With the changing profile of data storage in the economy and new devices showing up at regular interval like powerful Pen-Drive, MPs, Mobile SIM card and remotely-accessed Servers located across the physical boundaries of a tax jurisdiction, a major challenge has cropped up before the CBDT. Since technologically matching the changing profile of data-storage by taxpayers has become a sine qua non for success in detecting undisclosed income, the CBDT has also geared up to modernise its Investigation Directorate and has also developed modern tools. What may assist it in stepping up search operations in the coming years are the steps like integrated taxpayer data management system, setting up Cyber Forensic Lab, Software tools for scrutiny of computrised accounts and enhanced coordination between commissionerates and the investigation directorates. A special cell set up by the Board has already gone through the findings of a pilot projects in Delhi. This project took up data mining from AIR and other documents for zeroing in on potential cases for investigation. A software developed for this purpose indeed produced quality leads by detecting tax evasion and reducing time for developing cases. To commercially exploit the benefits of this software, the Board had set up a committee of five DGITs and a vendor has already been selected to develop the same for all India application. What prompted the Board to go for a cyber forensic lab is the growing feedback from the search teams coming across various modern forms of storage devices like CDs, DVDs, MP3 Players, i-Pods etc. These devices offer a good avenue for concealing data. Expertise is required to locate relevant data in computers, properly analyse them for their evidentiary value and finally produce the same before a court of law where their authenticity can be established. At present there is no uniform or integrated approach in the Department to handle such data. There is no laid down guidelines nor any consolidated Instruction in this regard. There are many serious loopholes in the departmental practices. In this background, a committee was set up to examine the need for a cyber forensic lab and also identify the best practices in the world. An effort is on to adopt uniform practices. For some of the tools, the Board has identified some vendors who are working on them. Yet another significant step the Board has taken is to increasingly enhance the efficiency of software tools for examination of computerised accounts and electronic documents for scrutiny cases. For productive coordination between the investigation directorates and commissionerates, steps like centralisation of search cases, time-bound targets of central charges, reward to officers and many others have been taken. All these steps are expected to produce more substantial results this fiscal, and one may see a sustained momentum behind search operations by the Department in the coming months.

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