Tax academy creates video training module to help officers detect evasion

The National Academy of Direct Taxes, which trains income tax officers for detecting tax evasion, has created, for the first time, a video training module and hosted it on a popular internet platform.

The videos are uploaded in an unpublished category (partially secret) so that only those officers having the URL would be able to access the content.

An unlisted video can be watched only by people who have the URL link. When a video is unlisted it does not appear in search results on a search such as Google. But it can be shared with a very large group of people, who have the clearance to watch the video. Senior IT officials told BusinessLine that the videos’ content includes identification of penny stocks and its beneficiaries, ways to identify beneficiaries of bogus claims under Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) tax, especially for penny stocks, using of Google Earth Pro tool for assessing agriculture income, how to identify fictitious loss of profits in future and options trading and offshore shell companies and money laundering business.

The National Academy of Direct Taxes is a training institute located in Nagpur, equivalent of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration for IAS. It conducts the induction training for the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) fresh recruits as well as advanced courses for senior management of IRS.

Serve as small guide

The officials pointed out that the idea of video-based training emerged at NADT while interacting with IT officers in classrooms sessions. The videos would serve as a small guide for seeking hidden information.

The officials added that videos of subjects such as offshore shell companies and money laundering, viewing XBRL files of companies on the Ministry Of Corporate Affairs website and taking data back-up after conducting search and survey are also in the works.