I-T dept Discloses non-disclosure of property transactions worth Rs 3,000 cr in two sub-registrar offices in TN

Tamil Nadu, 6th July 2023: According to sources, the Income Tax department has discovered non-disclosure of property transactions worth Rs 3,000 crore that occurred at two sub-registrar offices in Tamil Nadu over the last five years.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Income Tax department’s Intelligence and Criminal Investigation arm, Directorate of Tamil Nadu, conducted a survey at the sub-registrar office in Uraiyur, Tiruchirappalli district, and another SRO office in Redhills, Tiruvallur district.

According to sources, more than 20 Income Tax officials and eight armed police officers were involved in the drill, which lasted more than 20 hours.

According to Income Tax guidelines, an Inspector-General or a Sub-Registrar must report to the department information concerning the purchase or sale of immovable property by any person “if it is Rs 30 lakh or more” in the form of a Statement of Financial Transaction (SFT).

Despite the I-T department conducting multiple outreach programmes to SROs to educate them on the importance of filing SFTs on time, they claim that “there was reluctance and non-compliance” by many officers of the TN registration department to report specified transactions on time.

The current survey, undertaken at the sub-registrar offices in Redhills and Uraiyur, revealed the non-disclosure of property transactions of Rs 3,000 crore that occurred over the previous five fiscal years.

Sources said, “While the non-disclosure of property transactions that have taken place was valued at Rs 2,000 crore at the SRO in Redhills, it was Rs 1,000 crore in Uraiyur SRO. In Uraiyur alone, a whopping Rs 1,000 crore worth of property transactions has taken place which was not disclosed to the department. This emerged during the survey.”

The survey was required because the SROs in the two districts were discovered to be “non-filers or defect filers” of SFTs.