The finance ministry is widening the scope for obtaining information beyond the seven transactions that are currently covered by the annual information returns.

These transactions include property deals over Rs 30,00,000 (Rs 3 million), mutual funds of Rs 200,000 or more and RBI bonds worth Rs 500,000 or more.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes is also finalising a list of institutions from which the central information branch can call for information under Section 133(6) of the Income Tax Act.

Rahul Garg, executive director, PricewaterhouseCoopers said, "Currently, the Section authorises the income tax department to collect information from any person, including a banking company. It appears the department intends to include new sources of information."

Ministry officials said the data from the list of professions and institutions, once finalised, would be sought by the CIB in a standardised format to ensure it was used electronically.

"There were several instances where the power of the CIB to call for information was challenged by several organisations including banks and telecom companies," an official said, adding there was an instance where the department of telecom represented against the CIB's decision to call for information on the subscriber base of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited.

The restructuring of the CIB has become more relevant since the ministry is keen on not duplicating the information collected through the AIRs.

 "The role of the CIB in the annual information returns has now been limited to just detecting cases without permanent account numbers. In case the department is unable to detect the PAN even after the return is passed through the search engine, the department will ask the CIB to step in and call for information from the assessee," an official said.

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