Gurgaon: Around 2.5 lakh property transactions — valued at more than Rs 3 lakh crore — in the north-west region of India have come under the scanner of the Income Tax (I-T) department, officials said.Most of these high-value deals originate from Gurgaon and Faridabad, where revenue offices either failed to report transactions or submitted records with incomplete or incorrect PAN details. Such deficient reporting makes the data unusable for tax verification, severely hampering the department’s ability to track high-value transactions and enforce compliance.Over the past year, the directorate of intelligence and criminal investigation (Chandigarh) conducted more than 40 surveys and spot verifications across revenue offices in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and UTs, including Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. The surveys were also carried out at Wazirabad tehsil office in Gurgaon and Ballabhgarh tehsil in Faridabad.The surveys focused primarily on sub-registrar offices, matching property transactions with I-T returns of buyers and sellers. In 2025, a survey at Wazirabad tehsil alone indicated annual tax evasion exceeding Rs 5,000 crore, with PAN details of buyers and sellers not entered during registrations.Across 93 tehsils in 22 districts, PAN details were found missing in several cases despite being mandatory for property deals above Rs 30 lakh.The Rs 3 lakh crore figure represents the highest-ever such detection in any single region. Nationally, unreported or incorrectly reported transactions may exceed Rs 7.5 lakh crore, sources said.Before issuing notices, the department uses a ‘Nudge’ (Non-intrusive usage of data to guide and enable) approach — alerting taxpayers via email about mismatches and encouraging them to voluntarily revise returns. “Action follows only if they fail to respond or revise the tax returns,” an I-T official said.While cooperative banks and financial institutions also showed some non-compliance, discrepancies were most pronounced in tehsil offices.The I-T department is now engaging with these offices to ensure accurate PAN reporting for effective compliance checks.Haryana govt, in Jan, directed all deputy commissioners to ensure immediate submission of pending PAN details in property registrations. Tehsildars were asked to verify records and clear pendency on priority, particularly in Gurgaon and Faridabad.To prevent tax evasion, the I-T department asked the tehsil offices across the state to collect the specified financial transaction statement (SSFT) from parties involved in property transactions exceeding Rs 30 lakh during document registration. Submitting SSFT to the I-T department is obligatory under Section 285BA(1) of the Income Tax Act 1961.
