While announcing the results of the Income Declaration Scheme 2016 on 1st October, 2016 at a press conference in Delhi, the Honourable Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley stressed that no break-up of these declarations on the basis of trades/cities/states shall be released in order to ensure absolute secrecy with respect to the identity of the declarants.

Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) clarifies that no official list of region wise declarations has been issued. The Income Tax Department is committed to maintaining strict confidentiality of declarations made under the Income Declaration Scheme 2016. CBDT requests the general public not to pay any heed to such fraudulent messages circulating on social media.

Confidentiality of tax declarations secured; no regional breakdowns released to protect declarant identities under the scheme. The Central Board of Direct Taxes asserts that no region wise or trade/city/state break up of declarations under the Income Declaration Scheme will be released and that no official region wise list has been issued, committing to strict confidentiality of declarations and urging the public to ignore fraudulent social media messages claiming otherwise.