The Income Tax Department on Thursday said it has identified 90 lakh cases of high-value transactions made without the submission of a permanent account number, or PAN, and has warned that it will issue 7 lakh letters seeking their details. "The department has details of about 90 lakh such transactions for the period 2009-'10 to 2016-'17," a statement from the Finance Ministry said, PTI reported.

The transactions were exposed during the department's campaign against defaulters, seeking to unearth as much black money as they can within the one-time compliance window that ends on September 30, 2016.

These big money deals were found after Annual Information Returns of the transactions were investigated. They include sale or purchase of immovable property at Rs 30 lakh or more and cash deposits of Rs 10 lakh or more in savings accounts, which .

With the help of "in-house computer techniques", the I-T Department clubbed such non-PAN deals and identified "7 lakh high-risk clusters having around 14 lakh non-PAN transactions", the statement said, adding that they will ask the individuals concerned to submit their PAN details on an e-filing portal they will develop.

Earlier this week, the Central Board of Direct Taxes said it is investigating as many as nine lakh cases of big money transactions, warning black money holders that it will "confront" them with this data. The move was meant to encourage defaulters to declare their undisclosed income within the compliance window stipulated by the government under the Income Declaration Scheme. The Centre had also clarified that black money holders cannot pay their taxes and penalties from these sources of income.