The income tax department has detected a fraud involving unauthorised use of permanent account numbers (PAN) by individuals to claim house rent allowance when they were not even tenants. So far, at least 8,000 – 10,000 high value cases have been detected with amounts running into Rs. 10 lakh or more.
The cases first came to light when authorities found alleged rent receipts of around Rs. 1 crore by an individual.
When confronted, the individual whose PAN reflected the “rental income” denied any knowledge. Further probe revealed that the individual indeed did not receive the rent that was shown against his name.
The case prompted the income tax department to further investigate the matter and it turned out that there was rampant misuse of PANs by unscrupulous individuals to claim tax deduction from their employers. So much so that officials have now come across cases where employees of certain companies have used the same PAN to claim tax deducation.
Read more at: The Times of India
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