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by IANS |
New Delhi, March 13 (IANS) Central Board of Direct Taxes Chairman Pramod Chandra Mody on Wednesday said that the tax department has alerted its field units to keep extra watch on advance tax payments, TDS and self-assessment taxes to ensure healthy collections.
As part of the exercise, the department will also undertake a weekly status assessment for taxes so that updated data is available and loopholes, if any, are plugged.
"We have asked for extra monitoring under the traditional channels -- advance tax collections, tax deducted at source (TDS), self-assessment and regular assessment collections. I have asked the field units to give weekly status reports on collections," Mody told IANS.
"Collections have to be monitored extensively. I have just reviewed the Mumbai region tax report and the numbers look healthy," he said. Mumbai has major advance taxpayers as the zone is home to half of the top 100 companies and is responsible for one-third of direct tax collections.
The CBDT chairman said he is hopeful of meeting the revised direct tax target of Rs 12 lakh crore for FY19. So far the tax department has collected a little less than Rs 8 lakh crore as taxes.
Recently, Mody held review meetings on advance tax which holds key to meeting the direct tax targets. According to sources, CBDT is expecting Rs 1.5 lakh crore as advance tax payments.
The growth rate in corporate advance tax collection is 12.5 per cent and that of personal advance tax is 23.8 per cent, which have to move up, if the CBDT is to meet the target of Rs 12 lakh crore.
Finance Ministry officials said that the direct tax revenue growth is at 12.2 per cent so far as against revised full year aim of 19.8 per cent.
The Centre had mopped up Rs 7.88 lakh crore in direct tax during April-January 2019. As per the Budget documents, the government has revised its direct tax collection target to Rs 12 lakh crore in revised estimate from earlier budgeted level of Rs 11.5 lakh crore.
The government had met close to two-third of its revenue collection target from direct taxes, garnering Rs 7.88 lakh crore from April 2018 to January 2019.
In FY18, direct tax collection was Rs 10.02 lakh crore, which exceeded the then revised budgeted target of Rs 9.8 lakh crore.
The income tax e-returns filed for the April-February period has grown nearly 30 per cent compared with the corresponding period in FY18.
