The Hindu Business Line : `Less awareness hindering more tax compliance'

Attributing the current buoyancy in direct tax collections of the Government to growing voluntary tax compliance, the Chief Commissioner of Income Tax , Kolkata, Mr D.K. Das, said here today that two things have to be ensured by the department in the current context — rewarding the cost of compliance by the taxpayers and making the cost of non-compliance quite heavy for the errant taxpayer.

Speaking at a national workshop on `Finance Act '06, TDS, e-Filing and FBT', organised by the Delhi-based Institute of Socio Economic Research & Action (ISERA) here, Mr Das said lack of awareness on the part of the assessees to both changing income-tax laws and the approach of the department was coming in the way of greater compliance.

Intensive investigation

While the annual information reports filed during 2004-05 have yielded a whole host of information, only 9 out of every 1,000 transactions reported are being taken up for deeper investigation (by the traditional method).

In the days to come, even this figure may go down. Explaining the rationale behind the Finance Act and its correlation with the charging section (Sec 4) of Income Tax Act 1961, Mr Das said out of the 4.6 crore PAN cards allotted countrywide, only 2.9 crore are filing their returns.

Large taxpayer units

Asked on the fate of the large taxpayer units, Mr Das said it was taking time as a complete foolproof system based entirely on a voluntary approach was yet to evolve, going by the response of the large taxpayers.

Mr Das told Business Line that all the commissioners in the Bengal zone would be meeting on October 20 to finalise their recommendations, which would then be forwarded to the revenue department, which was now working on a new I-T Act.