I-T Dept to ‘name and shame’ crorepati defaulters

New Delhi, August 29 

As part of its ‘naming and shaming’ policy to curb tax evasion, the Income Tax Department may soon go on to publish names of even those taxpayers who have a ‘chronic’ default of Rs 1 crore and above.

Officials said the policy framework for putting the names of such entities in public domain has been in the making for quite some time and the proposal is now being vetted by the CBDT.

An action plan in this regard was also discussed during the Tax Administrators conference held here a few months ago and once the CBDT approves the policy, the names would be published in leading dailies and could possibly also be displayed on the department’s official web portal, they said.

“The subject will be discussed by the CBDT with senior I-T brass in the next few days after which a final decision will be made. The proposal is that cases of chronic default of over Rs 1 crore would also be publicly named, on the lines of a similar step taken against large tax defaulters beginning last year,” a senior official said. — PTI