The Income Tax Department today said it has initiated criminal prosecution proceedings in a large number of cases of tax offenders and evaders. Prosecutions have been initiated for offences including willful attempt to evade tax, failure in filing returns of income and failure to deposit the tax deducted or collected at source. Central Board of Direct Taxes in a statement said, till November of financial year 2017-18, the Department filed Prosecution complaints in over 2200 cases as compared to 784 during for the corresponding period of last financial year, marking an increase of 184 percent. It said, the number of complaints compounded by the Department till November 2017 stands at 1052 as against 575 in the corresponding period of previous year. Compounding of offences is done when the defaulter admits to its offence and pays the compounding fee as per stipulated conditions. Due to the decisive and focused action taken by the Department against tax evaders, the number of defaulters convicted by the courts has also registered a sharp increase during the current fiscal. 48 persons were convicted for various offences till November of this fiscal as compared to 13 convictions during the same period of last fiscal. The Income Tax Department has accorded the highest priority to tackle the menace of black money.