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The Central Board of Direct Taxes has expressed concern over the moderate growth in revenue collection and has asked income tax departments of various States to ramp up collections even as the December 15 deadline for paying advance tax is fast approaching.
In a recent missive addressed to the Principal Commissioners of Income Tax, Sushil Chandra, Chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes, said the actual revenue collection across India has registered a growth of 14.36 per cent as against the required growth rate of 15.3 per cent.
Expressing apprehension over some regions registering negative growth and a few States missing the expected growth rate in revenue collection, Chandra said it is quite evident that sufficient efforts have not been made in the area of maximising revenue generation in some regions.
Arrears collection lags
Chandra was also disappointed over the lack of efforts from tax officials in recovering tax arrears and said the department had recovered only 25 per cent of the annual revenue collection from arrears of ₹71,500 crore.
Similarly, he said the tax department has achieved only 1.5 per cent of revenue demand raised against the overall target of 20 per cent.
“Very few recovery related surveys have been carried out and no property has been auctioned by TRO (tax recovery officers) for recovery. All measures to step up collection including prosecution under Section 276C(2) (wilful attempt to evade payment of tax) in appropriate cases,” said Chandra in the letter.
Though gross direct tax collection (under the income tax, personal tax and other direct tax categories) was up by 15.2 per cent in the first six months of this fiscal at ₹4.39 lakh crore, it accounts for only 45 per cent of the Budget target of ₹9.8 lakh crore.
The government has refunded ₹89,507 crore between April and October.
Advance tax estimate
Earlier, CBDT had dropped plans to direct corporates and individual professionals to submit their tax payment estimate for next two quarters in advance.
In September, it came out with a draft notification directing companies with annual income of ₹1 crore and professionals with ₹50-lakh income per annum to report estimates of their current income, tax payments and advance tax liability on a voluntary basis by November 15. However, it did not notify the final norms on the proposal.
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