Synopsis
As various govt departments start sharing data with each other, the income tax department has started going after benami properties, or real estate assets bought under pseudo or fake names.
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The tax department is said to have mapped certain areas across India and found wealthy individuals owning farm lands through dummy representatives and shell companies.
A few weeks back, a Mumbai-based small business owner received a notice from the income tax department enquiring about the money spent on buying a multi-crore apartment in the city. The tax officials are investigating how the business owner, who earns about Rs 60,000 per month, could afford an apartment worth Rs 3.1 crore — that too without a housing loan. They suspect that this probably is a “benami” property, where the actual investor is someone else.