Ever since the Income Tax (IT) department announced a reward of up to Rs 1 crore to whistleblowers of benami properties, the Benami Prohibition Unit (BPU) has been flooded with vague tip-offs by eager citizens. Unfortunately, the BPU has not been able to make any major headway due to the lack of specifics in these tip-offs.
As per a report, many people have approached the BPU to offer details about benami properties, both in writing and verbally, but have failed to provide meaningful information. Many of these people are just inquisitive about the reward that they can get.
According to the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016, any property acquired by a person in the name of a benamidar can be confiscated and the individual involved can be imprisoned for up to seven years. The Benami Transactions Reward Scheme, 2018 was launched by the Ministry of Finance with an objective of obtaining people’s participation in the IT department’s efforts of unearthing black money and reducing tax evasion.
In order to provide information to the BPU, people are required to fill up a form and furnish the informant’s Aadhaar number along with a copy of the card. In case the information is being provided by a foreign national, the passport number needs to be mandatorily entered. The scheme offers to protect the identity of the informant though.
According to the scheme, the informant can get an interim reward of up to one percent of the fair market value of the property, subject to a maximum of Rs 10 lakh for information on a single benami property. Also, on fulfilling certain conditions, the informant can get a final reward of up to five percent of the fair market value of the property, subject to a maximum of Rs 1 crore for information of a single benami property.
