Govt starts tech-driven system for tax compliance

Faced with runaway expenditure and tepid revenue growth, the government on Saturday set in motion a technology-driven system that will help assess tax deductee in a better way and ease compliance.

The Finance Minister P Chidambaram, after inaugurating the Centralised Processing Cell (CPC) of the Income Tax department, said : “We have around 28 lakh deductees, of which only 14 lakh people have filed return. The other 14 lakh do not file returns. We do not know whether they are filing TDS.”
The CPC would process all Tax Deducted at Source applications and would help ease the compliance procedure for taxpayers.

Gross direct tax collection stood at over Rs 4.55 lakh crore during the April-January period of current fiscal, as against Rs 4.25 lakh crore in the same period in 2011-12.

However, the collection of indirect taxes has not kept pace. The government has repeatedly warned tax evaders, asking them to disclose their correct income and pay advance tax by due date or face penal action.