Finance Minister Mr. P Chidambaram has said that the central government will continue with its effort to recover tax arrears and bring more people into the tax net.
Between 2013 January and March... we issued notices, after mining the data, and thanks to the advertising campaign, we have added about 50 lakh more taxpayers into the tax net, he said during the debate on the Finance Bill in the Rajya Sabha on recently. We would like to do the same thing in 2013-14 & we will add many more (into the tax net).
Rajya Sabha returned the Finance Bill & other Bills to the Lok Sabha, completing the budgetary exercise for the Union Budget & the Railway Budget, even as the Opposition decided to walk out. It is a shame that only about 42,800 people in India admit to have an income of over one crore, Mr. P. Chidambaram said the House.
He hopes to add lakhs more to the tax net in 2013-14 through the same strategy.
In the January to March quarter, tax authorities had sent reminders to about 1.05 lakh persons selected through extensive data mining. Mr. Chidambaram's campaign to catch tax evaders using IT tools helped him achieve the downwardly revised but steep revenue target.
The minister had slashed the gross tax collection target for 2012-13 by Rs. 40,000 crore to Rs. 10.38 lakh crore. He admitted that the I -T department faced time and resource limitations, but informed the House that they were being addressed.
Mr. P. Chidambaram said, ''India was faced with important issues such as fiscal deficit, current account deficit & capital flow, and the political class needed to come together to address them. We have political differences, But, can we not agree that the economy of the country is beyond political differences Can we not take a bipartisan approach to basic economic issues, on issues of fiscal prudence, on issues of balancing a Budget,on issues of investment, savings, growth rate, inclusive development he said. All of us want India to grow at a rapid pace so that we can lift many more millions out of poverty, he said. When asked about the delay in liquidation of tax arrears, he said, Tax matter, such as any other matter in India country, travels through 3 or 4 levels of adjudication & takes many many years. There are some tax arrears that are purely notional.
For example, in the Harshad Mehta case, there are tax arrears running into lakhs of crores... ,he said, adding that there was no one to pay those taxes as Mehta was not even alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment