National data centre for tax to be set up

A national data centre of the income tax department will come up in the National Capital Region this year.

The centre, which will be in Ghaziabad, will integrate all 510 locations of the department through intra-net. This will help in checking tax evasion and faster processing of data.

Only 60 locations of the department are connected through intra-net now and the rest have to manually send the files to the regional centres.

"The national data centre will help the department store all data at one place," a Central Board of Direct Tax official said. There will be proxy centres at other locations in the country to protect the data in case there is any damage to the primary site.

The centre will work as a tracing mechanism to nab potential tax evaders. By comparing the annual information return with that of the tax return filed, the department hopes to nail those who have not revealed their investments in equities, mutual funds and other financial instruments.

Annual information returns were introduced in 2004-05 for the first time to capture high value financial transactions.

The data centre will also help the department in faster refunds and expand the refund banker scheme across the country. Currently, the refund banker scheme is available in Delhi and Patna under a pilot project through State Bank of India.