I-T dept. to share taxpayer details with Petroleum Ministry

This is part of the government’s initiative to effectively block LPG subsidy to higher income groups.

Mysore Karnataka: 15 05 2013: Authorities in Mysore have stepped up seeding of Aadhaar number of LPG consumers with bank accounts to faciltiate direct transfer of subsidy amount. PHOTO:M.A.SRIRAM;Mysore Karnataka: 15 05 2013: Authorities in Mysore have stepped up seeding of Aadhaar number of LPG consumers with bank accounts to faciltiate direct transfer of subsidy amount. PHOTO:M.A.SRIRAM - Mysore Karnataka: 15 05 2013: Authorities in Mysore have stepped up seeding of Aadhaar number of LPG consumers with bank accounts to faciltiate direct transfer of subsidy amount. PHOTO:M.A.SRIRAM

The Income Tax department will soon begin sharing personal data such as PAN, residential address and mobile numbers of a taxpayers earning over Rs 10 lakh per annum with the Petroleum Ministry as part of government’s initiative to effectively block LPG subsidy to higher income groups.

As part of an official deal between the two departments, the I-T department will also share the date of birth, gender, email id, residential phone number and all available addresses of the taxpayers in its database so that the Ministry could zero down on each LPG subscriber who is availing the subsidy beyond the stipulated rules and has not voluntarily given it up.

The I-T department will soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry in order to begin this transfer of personal taxpayer data, in a “confidential and safe” manner.

The department, till now, used to share such proprietary data with law enforcement agencies (LEA) such as the police, the CBI, the ED and others with a rider that they should not share this information with anyone else and use it for investigation purposes only.

The latest move has also been approved by the policy making body of the department, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), in the backdrop of the government’s decision, which had said that taxpayers with an annual income of more than Rs 10 lakh will not get subsidised cooking gas.

“This tax data with the oil ministry will ensure that all those who have income above Rs 10 lakh per year will automatically be barred from getting subsidised cooking gas cylinders. The data will be processed by the oil ministry and only names of those ineligible will be shared with the concerned LPG distributor on field. While some individuals and households have already given up this subsidy voluntarily after the government asked them to do so, there are many who have not done so. The government wants to check pilferage in this regard and hence the data is being shared between the two departments,” a senior official said ading that the transfer of data will begin soon.

At present, all households are entitled to 12 cylinders of 14.2-kg each at subsidised rates. The government has asked well-off people in the past to voluntarily give up using subsidised LPG and instead buy cooking fuel at market price.

The government, while announcing this decision last year, had said it “has decided that the benefit of LPG subsidy will not be available for LPG consumers if the consumer or his/her spouse had taxable income of more than Rs 10 lakh during the previous financial year computed as per the Income Tax Act, 1961.”