The Hindu Business Line : I-T Kolkata may provide UTI-ISL help on PAN

URGING small taxpayers to make full use of the `Help Centres,' being set up at various chamber premises outside the Income-tax department, the Chief Commissioner of Income Tax-Kolkata-1, Mr P.C. Sinha, said here on Thursday that he was also examining whether UTI-ISL could be requested to help the assessees with regard to PAN applications at these centres.

Mr Sinha said there was also a plan to install a computer at the Help Centres to speedily attend to assessee queries and also record these for online transmission of responses at a later date.

The new income-tax Help Centre, which will be manned by officers and staff of the department, with assistance from the chamber officials, has been set up at the premises of The Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCI). It was inaugurated on Thursday by the CCIT, and will be functioning between July and September, attending to all queries with regard to filing of I-T returns.

The CCIT, while addressing an open house, clarified that the Help Centres cannot be utilised for receiving the returns, as suggested by a participant, as I-T returns need to be cross-checked with a whole host of information, which cannot be done outside the department.

According to Mr Pallav Gupta, chairman of the Taxation Sub-Committee of the chamber, and GM, Taxation, ITC Ltd, said it was heartening to note that the department was now reaching out to the small assessees through the Help Centres. Pointing out that things were now happening on the service functions area of the I-T department, like setting up of large taxpayer units (announced by the Union Finance Minister, and expected to come up within the next six months) and integrated Help Desks, Mr Gupta said all this would help the sagging tax-GDP ratio to multiply, and in turn help Indian industry in the next couple of years.

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