CBDT plans to shore up tax collection

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) will conduct on Wednesday a countrywide review of tax collection, especially for advance tax, tax deduction at source (TDS), arrears, and black money cases in a bid to shore up the direct tax revenue kitty for the financial year ending March 31.

In December, the CBDT had revised its target for direct tax collection to ~10 trillion, which includes personal income tax and corporate tax, up from the budgeted ~9.8 trillion.

Sources said the agency was confident of achieving the ambitious target as it was receiving an overwhelming response from India Inc. “We are looking at better advance tax collection for the January-March quarter. Up to December, ~3.8 trillion advance tax had been collected, reflecting a growth rate of 12.7 per cent as against advance tax payment of the corresponding period in 2016,” said a tax official.

While total direct tax collection showed a growth of 19.5 per cent to ~7.4 trillion in the April- February period of the current fiscal year, initially the collection number was not satisfactory. The gross tax collection grew only 8.4 per cent in the July quarter of 2017, he noted.

Sources said some of the big taxpayers had been asked to pay more advance tax in the last quarter, deadline for which would end on March 15. “We have clarified that there is no scope of deference, short of payment or variation in the advance tax payments for this quarter,” said an I-T official.

The I-T department has identified taxpayers who had showed differences between the income and expenses to defer the payment. The cases where the asseessees were unable to justify the earnings and source of money, used for investments during this financial year, had been directed to pay the full amount, he said.

Besides, the agency will analyse top TDS defaulters in the country and follow-up action or disposal of matter in such cases. According to another tax official, the CBDT is concerned over the shortfall in TDS collections as growth under this has been showing constant decline.

The meeting will also focus on the position of the current demand raised till January in the case of pending cases. Further, cases of cash collection, out of the total tax arrears demands, will also be taken up during the meeting.

The CBDT will also check the status of black money cases under its ‘Operation Clean Money’ (OCM). The IT department has issued notices to over 6,000 people who have deposited suspicious amount of money in banks during note ban and have not responded to the tax department seeking explanation. Action under OCMled to a 23.5 per cent increase in the tax filing, said the official cited above. So far, the tax department had conducted 9000 searches between November 2016 and March 2017, leading to detection of undisclosed income of ~93 billion.