CBDT to ramp up AI-led crackdown on tax evasion ahead of new income tax law: Chairman Ravi Agrawal

Economic Times

4 days ago

IANS CBDT chairman Ravi Agrawal
New Delhi: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) aims to step up its crackdown on evasion through the greater use of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify discrepancies in the reporting of income, chairman Ravi Agrawal said in an interview. This is in preparation for the new income tax law that's set to be approved by the Parliament in the current session.
With access to over 6.5 billion domestic digital transactions and the exchange of information with overseas agencies, the Income Tax Department is poised to detect evasion more effectively, Agrawal said.
He allayed concerns over powers that tax authorities have to access digital records. This is strictly restricted to search and seizure operations where taxpayers refuse to share information, and are not aimed at snooping on ordinary taxpayers, he said."The next phase of AI usage would be more intense, with reporting agencies providing more mature data for carrying out detailed analytics to identify evaders and hit the right targets," he said.The Income Tax Department was proactively providing taxpayers with information about their financial transactions to encourage voluntary compliance. As many as 11 million updated returns have been filed, resulting in an additional tax mop-up of more than ₹11,000 crore, with the rollout of this facility since April 1, 2022.
A recent nudge campaign led to withdrawal of tax deduction claims worth ₹963 crore, and the payment of ₹409.50 crore additional taxes between April 1, 2023, and June 18, 2025. A total of 30,161 taxpayers declared ₹29,208 crore of foreign assets and foreign income of ₹1,089 crore between November 2024 and March 31, 2025.'This was the result of analytics,' Agrawal said. 'We were able to carry out a pan-India operation.'The clear message from the tax authorities is that the department is non-intrusive and a facilitator but is keeping watch, said the CBDT chairman. A similar campaign will be rolled out this year using fresh data sets, he said.Agrawal noted that the data received under various information exchange agreements had improved over the past two years. 'The quality of information has improved because they have also understood our requirements and it is helping us identify taxpayers that hold foreign assets,' he said. There is an emphasis on regular updates, as technology evolves to tackle areas such as the dark web, crypto and other new forms of transactions.Agrawal said India is 'actively participating and contributing' to discussions at global forums on the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework. 'India's voice in all these platforms is being heard. We are deliberating as to how best we can actually exchange information,' he said, adding that the country had already enabled this through regulation.
The CBDT chairman said digitisation has helped expand the taxpayer base to 90 million in FY25, from 30 million in FY14. Data showed that gross refunds issued increased by 474% — from Rs 83,008 crore in FY14 to Rs 4.76 lakh crore in FY25 — with the average refund processing time dropping to 17 days, from 93 earlier.About 22% of income tax returns were processed within a day, and 26% in two to seven days.The department is collating annual data on about 6.5 billion transactions to prepare pre-filled forms for about 400 million taxpayers, with 99% of them agreeing with the information provided. 'As a country we should appreciate the background effort in pre-population of ITRs, which is prompting taxpayers towards compliance,' he said.
With the Parliament select committee submitting a report on the new income tax bill, the real work for the department starts now. 'The bill is the first step, and associated with this will be rules, forms and capacity building,' said Agrawal. 'This is a transition for the I-T Department, as well as for taxpayers.' The immediate focus would be to gear up the department for the massive transformation expected, with the new law that takes effect April 1, 2026.