Gujarat IT targets raised by Rs 1K cr

Taxmen will cough out Rs1,000 crore more from Gujarat during the financial year 2017-18, a top official said here on Tuesday. The revised target for the state is now close to Rs 48,000 crore, which is about 20% higher than that of previous fiscal. This is in line with upward revision of collection target across the country by 10-20%.

Briefing media persons in the city on Tuesday, AK Jaiswal, principal chief commissioner of Income Tax in Gujarat said ‘Operation Clean Money’ of the central government is being taken extremely seriously by the Gujarat unit and entire staff is working to achieve the target for rest of the fiscal 2017-18.

Jaiswal said the previous target for Gujarat was Rs 46,838 crore, which is now raised by Rs 1,000 crore. Till date about Rs 33,612 crore worth of tax revenue has been collected from Gujarat, which is about 72% of the target. “Gujarat has witnessed a growth of 19.5% of tax revenue collection as compared to the previous fiscal. By the end of March, we expect to cross 20% growth rate. If that happens, we will meet the revised target,” said Jaiswal.

He urged the people to pay taxes and not evade as there evaders will not be spared. “We do not want to collect a paise more than what is due, but tax payers paying due revenue is an issue,” he said.

The government is betting high on GST as it will make transactions transparent leading to higher Income Tax collection. However, industry players said that tax refund pending under GST is a major bottleneck.  Ïf GST refunds are paid on time, Income Tax payment will increase,” said Shailesh Patwari, president of Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI).