CBDT For Stern Action Against Fake CA In Tax Refund Fraud

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The CBDT has initiated action against the fake CA and officials of Infosys for fraudulent processing of tax refunds.

According to the Times of India, the CBI is investigating a “revised tax returns” fraud involving several unknown employees of Infosys Technologies, officials from the I-T department and a fake CA from Bengaluru.

The CBDT has filed a complaint in the matter.

The scam was unearthed by the CBDT and the Income-tax department in January 2018.

The FIR has alleged that I-T officials and Infosys’ employees connived with the fake CA and filed 1,010 revised tax returns using forged documents in the names of 250 taxpayers of various private firms, during three assessment years and claimed refunds illegally.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) issued a press release stating that the culprit is not a CA.

The CBDT is also investigating whether the officials of the income-tax department circumvented the system and get the required approvals.

According to the CBDT, the loss suffered by the income-tax department is Rs 5 crore.

The FIR states that the processing of e-returns is outsourced to Infosys Technologies Limited, who validate the returns in bulk and generate list of cases where refunds have to be approved. The Assessing Officers of the I-T department posted in CPC give the approval for release of refunds to assessees through their bank accounts.

It was found by the CBI that the assessment system tags revised returns and gives pop-up messages to draw the attention of the person processing them and also to assessing officers who approve refunds.

It appears that unknown officials of Infosys Technologies who were entrusted with the work of processing the returns and the I-T officials at CPC, who were authorised to approve issue of refunds are suspected to have connived with the CA in processing these revised returns based on false information or documents knowingly and issued income-tax refunds.

The CA would file revised returns of income claiming refund, in cases of assessees whose original returns were already processed by the CPC.

All these revised returns are filed with inflated claims on account of payments towards housing loan.

In some cases, original returns reflected no income or loss under the head ‘income from house property’ but the revised ones did. And, in some cases, original returns reflected income or loss from self occupied house property and in the revised returns, higher loss was claimed.