Pranab asks taxmen in Mumbai to pull up socks

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has asked taxmen in the city to pull up their socks to meet the Budget target fixed for the region.

The Finance Minister "exhorted the tax officers to put their best foot forward to achieve the Budget collection target fixed for the Mumbai region," Income Tax department said in a statement today.

Mukherjee had met tax officials in the city over the weekend.

The Mumbai region contributes over a third of the overall direct tax collections. It has been targeting a 33% increase in income tax collections at Rs 2.04 lakh crore for the fiscal, but has achieved a meagre 4% jump in advance tax collections, which contribute the most to the I-T kitty.

The minister was also informed of the higher refunds in this fiscal, the statement added.

At the meeting, Revenue Secretary RS Gujral had said that present times are "very critical" as a "steep decline" in GDP growth is resulting in a dip in the levy collections.

He said companies in the banking, finance and insurance sector, which account for half of the collections in the Mumbai region, are facing difficult time and the region will have to depend on sectors like software, pharma, FMCG and infrastructure, which are showing healthy increase, to achieve the target.

As an alternative, Mukherjee asked the I-T authorities to explore other possibilities like recovery in cases of tax defaulters and suggested adoption of some realistic steps to achieve targets in a time-bound manner.

The gloomy economic situation with expenditure outdoing receipts has resulted in concerns over widening fiscal deficit.