Tax Body Directs Taxman To Maximise Collection Efforts

INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
CBDT has directed income tax department officials to "maximise" their efforts and conduct targeted surveys and file court cases against
asking them to pull up their socks as only three months are left for current financial year to close on March 31."On review of trends of
growth under different minor heads, it is noted that growth in collection under regular assessment tax (recovery from arrear and current
demand) is extremely low at 1.1 per cent as compared to 15.6 per cent growth during corresponding period last year."Most of regions are, in
fact, showing negative growth under regular assessment tax
This is a matter of serious concern and concerted efforts are now required to be made to drive up recovery from arrear and current demand,"
board chief said
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) frames policy for I-T Department and supervises its work
Talking about direct tax collections, Chandra said that by end of December, 2018 growth rate has been 13.6 per cent as against target of
14.7 per cent
"The position of growth in gross collections is marginally better at 14.1 per cent but still below achieving budget estimates of Rs
11,50,000 crore," he said.The CBDT chief also suggested some "strategies" to be adopted and implemented to achieve targets
He asked taxman to conduct "targeted recovery surveys in potential cases where high amount of recovery is likely"
"Sale of attached properties in appropriate cases by tax recovery officers to recover confirmed demand where normal measures of recovery
have not yielded results" to be deployed, undertaking action to recover outstanding dues from companies and filing prosecution complaints in
courts against those people who are wilfully evading payment of outstanding taxes.The CBDT chief also asked tax officials to train their
scanner on tax deducted at source (TDS) collections and launch prosecution against those who are at "substantial default"
It has also been asked to "verify advance tax payment" by those who sell properties and monitoring of dividend distribution tax
The taxman has also been asked to timely complete regular assessments (non time-barring) in cases where demand is likely to be raised and
collected during current fiscal
"Other strategies depending upon specific characteristics of region should also be adopted so as to increase collections and ultimately