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Crack down on tax evasion, Sinha tells I-T dept

Sending a stiff message to the Income Tax department to ensure that the revenue targets for 2002-03 are met, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday asked the I-T department to step up seizures, surveys and inquires to track down tax evaders.

"The department should go beyond the one-by-six criteria to unearth tax evasion,'' Sinha said while inaugurating the 18th All India Conference of Chief Commissioners and Director Generals of Income Tax in New Delhi.

In this regard, Sinha said the Income Tax officials should also look at other ways to tackle black money, like searching the ownership of bank lockers and looking at the listings in yellow pages directories.

He said the comptroller and auditor general has recently brought out that many nursing homes were not paying their tax dues. He asked the department to make sure that entities such as these do not escape the tax net.

Sinha said if the tax deducted at source is not deducted by an organisation, then it is never paid.

The finance minister, however, said while carrying out seizures and survey there should be no harassment of the assesses. ''Be firm but polite,'' he told the large number of top tax officials present at the meeting.

Sinha also suggested ways to liquidate the mounting tax arrears for which he said he was often criticised in Parliament.

The finance minister stated that the main plank for increasing revenue this year would be to lay emphasis on direct taxes and excise collection, as the custom duties were to be progressively lowered in the next few years.

Regretting that there was a one per cent slippage in the fiscal deficit in 2001-02 primarily because of revenue shortfall, Sinha said he would not like to have the reputation of being an unpopular finance minister because of taking harsh measures and at the same time suffer the ignominy of shortfall in revenues.

"The war-like situation has continued for many years. I don't think that should come as an alibi for any failure on the revenue front. One thing I will hate to have is a tax shortfall," Sinha said.

"Troop mobilisation has put in some pressure on expenditure. But it has been factored in the Budget," he said.

He allayed fears of a higher fiscal deficit than the targeted 5.3 per cent of GDP and said, "There is no pressure on borrowings."

Sinha did not hazard a guess on the growth of GDP this fiscal but pointed out at projections of 4.0-6.5 per cent made by private agencies.

"The global economy is on the recovery path and the US economy is picking up. Despite the challenges we are facing, this year should be better," the finance minister said.

Sinha laid stress on revenue growth and said "They (I-T department) should do two things -- first, bring more people under tax net. Those who ought to pay tax should pay tax. Second, where evasion or concealment is taking place, they should be able to bring it to light."

He said the government would look into the difficulties that assessees are facing with the one-page income tax filing form 'Saral'.

On tax arrears, Sinha asked tax authorities to take up the issue with legal authorities to dispose of cases faster.

(UNI and PTI)

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