The Hindu Business Line : Ideas, strategies sought to improve indirect tax collections

THE Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, on Tuesday sought new ideas and strategies from chief commissioners of Excise and Customs to bolster indirect tax collections and prevent leakages of revenues through fraud and corruption.

Addressing the annual conference of Chief Commissioners of Excise and Customs here, Mr Chidambaram asked the officials to recover undisputed tax arrears quickly. On the disputed taxes front, the Minister said that sincere efforts must be made to quicken the process of litigation, getting the stays vacated etc.

"We have to collect about Rs 1,65,000 crore in excise and customs. We are looking at innovative ways and outsourcing of some activities. We went through the problems in revenue collections and we are confident of achieving the target," Mr Chidambaram told newspersons here after his address at the conference.

Excise duty collections for 2004-05 have been budgeted at Rs 1,09,199 crore compared to Rs 92,379 crore in the last fiscal, while customs duties have been estimated at Rs 54,250 crore in 2004-05 compared to Rs 49,350 crore in the last fiscal. The service tax target for 2004-05 is pegged at Rs 14,150 crore.

"Revenue collection is at the heart of the Finance Ministry. Unless we raise revenue, we can't fund development projects," Mr Chidambaram said.

Besides analysing the reasons for shortfall in indirect tax collection during last year and the corrective action proposed to recoup the shortfall, the conference also deliberated on the strategies for recovery of revenue arrears and achievement of revenue targets for the current fiscal.

The Chief Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise of the major metros viz., Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai made their presentations on revenue collection and on recovery of arrears.