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KOLKATA, June 23

THE income-tax department, over and above the requirement of PAN, which may emerge as a kind of citizen identity number in the none too distant future, is now pressing forward to create a comprehensive tax information network (TIN).

Participating in an interactive session organised by the Merchants Chamber of Commerce (MCC) here on Monday, Mr S.C. Yadav, Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax-1, West Bengal, said combined with the PAN card, the TIN would be developed in such a manner that all information pertaining to financial transactions of the assessees wherever they may take place, would come into the department's network.

He said the available information would be matched with the PAN card data, and wherever discrepancies come to light, scrutiny of the specific cases would be taken up.

He clarified that this would to a large extent take out the concerned ITO's discretion, and decision-making would be entirely based on the developed intelligent criteria, which would be applied uniformly.

Ruling out needless harassments of assessees at the hands of the assessing officer, as the department was now functioning completely as a facilitator, and not a regulator, Mr Yadav, particularly referring to the tax-paying business community, said ``we would like to believe that we are dealing with a cultured section of our society which pays taxes regularly, in full compliance of the Rules". In this context, he mentioned that for the June quarter in the current fiscal, the advance tax received by the department has shown an upward trend.

On the request of the chamber president that full-fledged first-aid facilities should be provided at the Aayakar Bhavan premises, as visiting assessees do need this, Mr Yadav readily agreed on the proposal, quipping that assessees do come to the department with a lot of tension.

Justifying the decision to outsource PAN cards through the UTI, beginning from July 1, he said the move was intended to expedite the process of issue of standardised pilfer-proof PAN cards for the benefit of the assesses.

The process was expected to be completed within three months' time.

He pointed out that PAN would be used for all other financial transactions and would go on to establish a citizen's national identity, somewhat like the social security number concept in developed countries.

Asked how soon would electronic filing of all I-T returns would come into force, he said the key problem of electronic signature was now in the process of getting stabilised.

Welcoming the move to make it mandatory for corporates to file their returns electronically, Mr K.B. Agarwala, President of MCC, said it would create problems for the small companies which are not strong enough to build up the required infrastructure.

He urged the department to leave out very small companies from the purview of electronic filing of returns.

Responding, Mr Yadav said it would be in the interest of the small companies to file the returns electronically, especially for availing TDSD credit, as online connectivity would become the order of the day sooner or later.

Responding to the chamber's observation that records of assessees were still not transferred along with the transfer of jurisdiction of the assessees, especially as to where they are to be assessed now, the CCIT said the initial problems encountered on account of modernisation (when jurisdictions were changed) were now over.

He said bulk of the problems came up on account of wrong PIN code numbers of addressees, resulting in intimations being returned to the department.

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