During the year 2013, 2014 and 2015 (up to 31.3.2015), Income Tax Department has through its Non-filer Monitoring System (NMS) identified 12.9 lakh, 22.09 lakh and 44.09 lakh cases respectively, as non-filers of return, though having potential tax liabilities. As a result of the exercise, 30,68,662 new returns have been filed and additional tax of ₹ 4733.61 crore has been collected in the year 2013, 2014 and up to 31.3.2015 in the year 2015. Further follow up action is undeway and similar exercise is also planned to be undertaken in the current financial year.

 While identifying non-filers of return through NMS, the Income Tax Department analyses and assimilates all in-house information as well as transactional data received from third-party including Annual Information Return (AIR), Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) and Tax Collection at Source (TCS) statements, Central Information Bureau (CIB) data etc, to isolate such persons/entities who have undertaken high value financial transactions but have not filed return. A total of 79.08 lakh such non-filers have been identified since implementation of NMS in 2013.

 This was stated by Shri Jayant Sinha, Minister of State in Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

Non-filer monitoring leads to increased tax collection and new return filings using third-party transaction data. The Non-filer Monitoring System (NMS) identifies persons and entities undertaking high value financial transactions who have not filed returns by analysing in house and third party data (AIR, TDS/TCS, CIB). NMS identification prompted filing of over thirty lakh new returns and collection of additional tax revenue during 2013-2015, and follow up compliance actions are ongoing with similar exercises planned.