Govt to match netas’ I-T returns

The finance ministry has quietly initiated a process of
opening up the income-tax files of politicians belonging to all parties and
tallying their income statements with the affidavits filed by them with the
Election Commission during the 2009 parliamentary polls.

Verification of the assets declared by the Lok Sabha
candidates, many of whom have now become MPs and even ministers, will help the
department to assess if they had paid appropriate taxes as declared in their
statements with the two different authorities.

The finance ministry initiated the exercise after it found
that many of the candidates had made astounding declarations in their affidavits
to the EC, while initial scrutiny revealed that some of them had paid paltry or
no taxes. However, as many as 50% of the candidates in the 2009 LS polls had not
furnished their Permanent Account Numbers, making it difficult for the
department to ascertain the actual income of these people.

The department will be scrutinizing the I-T returns of all
Lok Sabha candidates irrespective of whether they ended up winning or not. A
letter from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has been circulated to all
those MPs whose records are not available with the I-T department or whose PAN
have not matched with the department’s records.

The details sought pertain to assessment years 2006-07 and
2007-08. The letter said: A verification exercise is being carried out by the
I-T Department, Ministry of Finance, in respect of affidavits filled by you at
the time of filing nomination for the general elections 2009.

For fear of being disqualified if statements made in the
affidavits were found to be untrue when elected, candidates had made some
astounding declarations. One candidate declared assets worth more than Rs 600
crores, while those having assets between Rs 100 crores and Rs 200 crores were
found in dozens during the 2009 polls.

(Source: Internet & Media Reports, dated 04.01.2010)

(Note: One sincerely hopes that vested interests are
not successful in sabotaging the whole exercise.)