Focus on top 100 taxpayers, non-filers: FM

Finance Minister P Chidambaram today asked tax officers to focus on big taxpayers and those who have stopped filing income tax returns or never filed one despite having a Permanent Account number (PAN).   

“I impressed upon the Commissioners and Chief Commissioners to focus on top 100 assessees. They account for 80 per cent of the excise collections… There are only 1.2 lakh excise duty assesses in the country. It is the smallest tax base of any tax,” he told a press conference after inaugurating the annual conference of Central Board of Excise and Customs.

Confident that the indirect tax collection target of Rs 5,63,386 crore for 2013-014 would be met, the finance minister asked officers to consider themselves as service providers and taxpayers as their clients.

Chidambaram also emphasized on targeting mounting non-filers and stop-filers in service tax, which have exceeded 1.2 million.

To tackle the situation, the CBEC would advertise one-time voluntary compliance scheme for service tax announced in the Budget “in a big way” to create awareness. As the response to the scheme has been poor so far, it will come out with FAQ (frequently asked question).

“There is one-time opportunity to come clean and pay your arrears of service tax without interest and without penalty and then pay regularly thereafter," he said.      
Service tax accounts for about one-third of indirect tax collections. The government expects to collect Rs 1.8 lakh crore from service tax this year.

The meeting focused on revenue moblisation from indirect taxes this year. The target has been set 19 per cent higher than last year’s actual collections of Rs 4,74,395 crore. The revenue mop up from indirect taxes saw an increase of 21 per cent in 2012-13 when the economy grew at 5 per cent. This year the growth in Gross Domestic Product is likely to be around 6 per cent.

The finance minister said direct tax collection target would also be met. The government has set a total tax collection target for the current financial year at Rs 12.35 lakh crore, against Rs 10.38 lakh crore last year.

Chidambaram also said that cadre restructuring for CBEC, which would give additional manpower to the department, was in the last stages of consideration and it would seen go to Cabinet.