Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said the target for direct tax collection of Rs 7,36,221 crore for the current financial year will be surpassed.
Addressing a conference of senior officials of the income tax department, Jaitley said though the government is making full efforts to bring back the black money stashed abroad, senior officers need to focus their efforts to unearth black money within the country which is also quite large.
"We hope that the revenue targets fixed for direct taxes for the current financial year 2014-15 would not only be achieved but also be surpassed," Jaitley said.
Revenue secretary Shaktikanta Das said to realise the goals on tax collection front, the department will need to reduce tax arrears which are to the tune of Rs 4 lakh crore and target higher tax recovery. He asked tax officials to reduce tax litigation and avoid frivolous and avoidable litigation in this regard.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes enumerated various steps taken to augment revenue collections including monitoring of advance tax payments by top tax papers, TDS payments by top deductors, monitoring tax payments by entities covered under MAT/AMT provisions, appropriate action to tackle default/deferment of payments of TDS/self assessment tax, harnessing impact of revenue augmenting legislation in recent years among others. Other steps taken to augment revenue include widening of tax base by follow-up of Non-filers Monitoring System (NMS) cases.
The government is also enhancing the quality of tax payer services such as early redressal of grievances specially relating to senior citizens, small and marginal tax payers, expanding network of Ayakar Sewa Kendras (ASK). Seventy more such Kendras will be opened in the current fiscal, taking their tally 260.
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