#ProjectInsight: Think Twice Before You Flaunt Opulence On Social Media

April 9, 2019

Domestic Airfares — Image used for representation only

If flaunting your exotic International vacation, deep sea diving, boutique shopping and the new SUV in your collection routine for you, then it may be prudent to read this…

The Income Tax department is all set to monitor social media handles of citizens.The department is poised to implement their latest brainchild “Project Insight’ in an attempt to crack down on tax evaders in the country.

Project Insight is a tax tracker built over a period of seven years at a cost of about Rs 1000 crores. It is expected to allow tax officials to develop a comprehensive, 360-degree profile of Indian taxpayers.

In the past, the I-T department largely relied on bank records of individuals to calculate their tax liability.

Now with Project Insight, the I-T department is planning to collect information from a variety of sources including social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to identify the mismatch between spending and income declaration.

A recent report stated that the data will be obtained from Insight and will be segregated. This will have the taxpayer’s master profile — which will include address, signature, I-T return profile.

There is apparently also a segment named business intelligence that will basically ferret out non-compliant folks.

So, if you have the habit of posting about foreign vacations, luxury lifestyles new cars and so on… beware. If the department finds out your spending out of your league than Big data might just deduce a mismatch between your earnings and expenditure.

In case there is a mismatch, you can expect a probe by the IT department. The project is set to be fully operational from April 1.

The I-T department has set up a host of key functionalities that could over time make tax evasion impossible. The process will basically entail complete profiling of a taxpayer — both new income tax filers and non-filers — in order to find out his/her tax liability.

While most Pune citizens have applauded the idea of Project Insight, many admitted to flaunting their check-ins, business trips and vacations on social media.