FM to interact with tax men on non-adversarial taxation

Committee on applicability of MAT on FIIs to have first meeting on 25

The Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley alongwith the Minister of State, Finance, Jayant Sinha and Revenue Secretary, Shaktikanta Das would interact with tax commissioners and director general of income tax to outline the thrust areas for the financial year.

In the two day meeting beginning Monday the finance minister is likely to advice the tax men on adopting a non-adversarial tax regime. Tax authorities would be advised to expeditiously settle tax payers' grievances and adopt steps to expand tax base.

"The participants will deliberate on the strategies to achieve the goals of the Department in these areas.The participants will also deliberate on matters pertaining to income tax investigations and issues relating to human resource development among others," said the finance ministry in a press statement.

Target for revenue collections in case of direct taxes has been fixed at Rs.7,97,995 crore during financial Year 2015-16 which is 14.66 per cent higher than the actual collections of Rs 6,95,988 crore during 2014-15.

The think storm session would also outline the measures the tax men would use to augment revenue collection, advance tax payment, Tax Deducted At Source (TDS) collections.

Regular Assessment Tax Collections, Self Assessment Tax, and Dividend Distribution Tax would also be mulled upon to boost the direct tax collections for the year.

Additionally on Monday the Justice AP Shah led committee on direct tax matters would have its first meeting on applicability of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) on foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) for previous years.

"We will be able to get a clear picture on the issue only after the first meeting," said a member of the committee.