33% firms with RoC not in income tax database: CAG

Government auditor CAG today said that about a third of the firms listed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) were not in the database of the Income Tax Department.
With a view to ascertaining the status of filing of return by corporate assessees, CAG said it compared the data obtained from different sources -- Ministry of Corporate Affairs, DGIT (Systems) and DGIT (Logistics, Research and Statistics).
"The difference between the working companies registered with ROC and the number of companies reported by DGIT (Logistics, Research & Statistics) ranged from 2.94 lakh (33.3 per cent) to 3.94 lakh (36.4 per cent) which indicates the extent of non filing/stop filing of the return of income by the companies," said the CAG report tabled in Parliament.

Also, there was "variation in the numbers of scrutiny disposal" during 2015-16 between data furnished by DGIT (System) and that available at the assessing officer level in Demand and Collection Registers.
"During FYs 2012-13 to 2015-16, about one third of the companies registered with the ROC were not in the database of the ITD (Income Tax Department).
"Only 19.57 per cent of the corporate non filers identified by the ITD had filed their returns in response to the notices issued by the ITD," the report said.
With an aim to bring 'Zero Tax Companies' into the tax base, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) suggested the tax department should devise a framework for accountability.

Under the framework, the officials concerned "may be made accountable for the effective use of Non-filers Monitoring System for identification of both corporate and non corporate non filers".