Crack Down On Evasion, Sinha Tells Taxmen

Finance minister Yashwant Sinha expressed concern over the declining revenue collection and asked revenue officials to deal with tax evasion sternly .

Addressing a national conference of customs and central excise officials here yesterday , Sinha said, "In real terms, we are getting around Rs 22,000 to Rs 24,000 crores less compared to a few years ago. We have to find out the reason for this."

Admitting that first-quarter revenue collections had shown a decline , Sinha said government tried to be as "realistic as possible" while fixing targets and was determined to provethat the budgeted targets could be met.

 

A three-tier simlplifed excise tax rate would be finalised before the next budget, he said . The proposed new excise tax slabs would be devised taking into account the needs and consumption patterns of the general public.

He said that a number of working groups have been appointed for rationalisation of the tax structure.

These groups are expected to give their reports by end of October.

Referring to customs he said that a number rate structures existed and sought for a reduction in these rates in order to correct distortions in classification.

The two day conference is expected to discuss and review the performance in key identified areas in the indirect tax administration during the current year and chalk out strategies and a series of measures to achieve the targets set for the Departments of Customs & Central Excise. Aparat from a critical evaluation of revenue trends some of the other more important areas proposed to be discussed include functioning of self assessment cum audit scheme, and the measures taken recently for making compliance easier and problems.