73% direct tax target collected till February

IT department hopeful of achieving full collection

With over 73% of its revenue target collected by February, the Income Tax department is hopeful of achieving a full kitty of direct tax collection of Rs 6.36 lakh crore by the end of this financial year on March 31.

The department, according to official data, has made a gross collection of Rs 5,44,891 crore which, after refunds, comes to a net collection of Rs 4,65,998 crore. The latter figure represents 73.23% of the total budget target of Rs 6,36,318 crore.

"The department is very hopeful of achieving the budget target with the last instalment of advance taxes and contributions made by targeted non-filers coming in by March 31," a top I-T department official told PTI.

The department is especially pinning its hopes on potential non-filers as it had recently issued letters to 21.75 lakh such assessees across the country.

Through this non-filers detecting exercise, which was done in close coordination with the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the I-T department collected over Rs 1,900 crore in taxes with more than five lakh returns having been filed under the category.

An estimated 1,50,000 self-assessment tax defaulters were thus detected during the 2013-14 financial year.

The department had initiated a business intelligence project called non-filer management system in February, 2013, to identify PAN holders who have not filed their returns and about whom specific information was available either in the Annual Information Return (AIR), Central Information Branch (CIB) data or TDS/TCS returns.

The department has already made it known that over four million high-spenders are under its scanner with plans afoot to check all potential evasion instances before the closing of the fiscal on March 31.

According to data published by it, the department has information on 4,072,829 persons who made cash deposits amounting to Rs 10 lakh or more in their saving bank accounts in the current fiscal amongst a host of other high-value spenders.