I-T dept seizes assets worth over Rs 4,800 Cr in last 4 years: Centre

New Delhi: Income Tax department has seized assets worth more than Rs 4,800 crore during searches against 2,841 groups in the last four years, the union finance ministry informed Lok Sabha on Monday.

The highest seizure of assets took place during 2022-23 (data till January 2023). Around Rs 1,533.23 crore were seized from 602 groups, the government said.

Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said these searches were undertaken to find "suspected or identified large-scale tax evasion".

Sharing the data for financial years 2019-20, 2020-22, 2021-22, and 2022-23 (provisional figures till January 2023), Chaudhary said a total of 2,841 groups were searched by the I-T department leading to the seizure of assets worth Rs 4,863.12 crore.

Hyderabad witnessed a high number of Income Tax raids in the last couple of years. To name a few, Income Tax Department detected "unaccounted" income of Rs 550 crore and seized over Rs 142 crore cash of Hetero Group owned by BRS Rajya Sabha MP Dr. B Partha Sarathi Reddy.

On October 6, 2021, the raids were carried out at 50 locations in six states. "Unaccounted income unearthed is estimated to be in the range of about Rs 550 crore till now," a statement from CBDT said.

In 2020, IT carried out searches at properties owned by Yashoda Healthcare services private limited.

Income Tax raided ew real estate groups in Hyderabad and one in Bengaluru.

Vasavi Gr, Sumadhura Group, Phoneix Group, and RS Brothers. However, so far the CBDT has not issued any statement on cash seized or assets frozen.

How do Central Investigating Agencies get information about money parked in offshore companies?

Centre has entered into Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements /Tax Information Exchange Agreements /Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters with other countries. This agreement provides for the exchange of information, which is foreseeably relevant for the administration and enforcement of domestic laws concerning taxes.

IU-India is a member of the Egmont Group, an international organization for the exchange of information and cooperation among Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs). The group comprises 167 members as of date.

This group can exchange freely information on a real-time basis through a highly secured network - ‘Egmont Secured Web’ (ESW) - on various matters as per their roles and functions.

FIU-India has also entered into Memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with 48 countries to strengthen bilateral relationships with its foreign counterparts from 2008 to 2022 for the exchange of intelligence. However, there is no official estimation to measure the amount of black money in the country.

-Properties worth Rs 1,159.59 crore were seized after searches against 686 groups in 2021-22.

-Assets worth Rs 880.83 crore were seized after action against 569 groups in 2020-21

-Assets worth Rs 1,289.47 crore were seized during searches against 984 groups in 2019-20.

Financial Year No. of groups searched Value of assets seized (in Rs. crores)

2017-18 582 992.52

2018-19 966 1567.07

2019-20 984 1289.47

2020-21 569 880.83

2021-22 686 1159.59

2022-23 (upto Nov 2022)* 438 1179.53

However, the figures do not include unaccounted cash seized during a search/raid against a specific entity.