CBDT eyes big-money spenders to broaden tax base by 10%
The Central Board of Direct Taxes aims to add 10% new tax return filers in FY2024. Also, the tax base is to be raised to 86 million.
- In the year 2020-21, 6.8 crore income tax returns were filed, but only 1.69 crore Indians paid income tax. This number is only about 1.2% of the total population of the country.
- A central action plan is currently underway to aggregate data from different agencies to examine certain high-value transactions and tax deduction at source (TDS).
Reasons for low tax-base:
- The process of filing tax returns is complicated,
- The agriculture sector has been kept out of the purview of paying income tax, the size of the informal sector in India’s economy is large,
- The tax administration of the country is overburdened,
- There is a lack of awareness and tax-literacy about tax payment,
- The number of tax related litigation is high etc.
Steps taken by the government
- Linking of PAN numbers with bank accounts (cross-seeding).
- Computer aided technologies like Computer Assisted Scrutiny Selection (CASS), Non-filers Monitoring System (NMS), Income Tax Business Application (ITBA) are being used.
- Tax slabs and tax rates are being harmonized. ITR form has been simplified.
Central Board of Direct Taxation
In the year 1963, through the Central Board of Revenue Act, 1963 (Central Board of Revenue Act, 1963), two institutions were formed under the Department of Revenue of the Union Ministry of Finance, which are as follows-
- Central Board of Direct Taxation
- Central Board of Excise and Customs
Both these institutions are statutory bodies. Of these, the CBDT administers the laws relating to direct taxes with the assistance of the Income Tax Department, as well as providing important inputs regarding policies and plans relating to direct taxes.
CBEC is the nodal agency responsible for the administration of Customs Duty, Central Excise Duty, Service Tax and Narcotics in India.
Source – PIB
