NEW DELHI, Jan 3: The grand success of VDIS 1997 will not make tax collectors complacent. Finance minister P Chidambaram said that now the efforts would be tap cell phone and farm house owners asking them to cough up taxes due to the exchequer. The Central Board of Direct Taxes will launch the ambitious campaign from January 5Speaking at a press conference, he said, in the first phase, the CBDT would be issuing notices to the cell phone owners, numbering about 6 lakhs, to file tax returns. The government has all the records of cellular phone owners. "We know their city-wise records. There is no place they can hide and I will advise all cell phone owners to file their returns," the finance minister said.
This would be a part of the exercise under section 139 of Income Tax Act for widening the tax net. The section states that anyone fulfilling two of the four criteria namely phone, house, vehicle and foreign travel should file tax returns.
The second target would be farm house owners. A large number of
them have already been issued notices and the remaining ones would be sent shortly.Simultaneously, he said, a media blitz would be launched from Monday asking people to file tax returns by February 28.
However, for CBDT, the focus in the next two months would be cell phone and farm house owners.
Given the success of the voluntary disclosure of income scheme, Chidambaram announced that the government will create a Rs 100 crore welfare fund under the Central Board of Direct Taxes in the next fiscal.
The fund which will set up from the VDIS proceeds will be on the lines of the fund existing with the Central Board of Excise and Customs, he saidRevenue secretary N K Singh later clarified that the government intends to set up the fund in response to suggestions received from CBDT.
"Since necessary approvals have to be taken and budgetary provisions made, the proposed welfare fund will come into effect only from the next fiscal,'' Singh said.
In his press conference, the finance minister also said that
commissioners of income tax will henceforth have to operate as profit centres. ``This does not mean that the officers will have to work for personal profit, each of them will have to meet a target based on which the next year's target and the officer's budget will be fixed,'' the minister said.
A commissioner who has about 22 years of service in the department will be given a certain amount of manpower and asked to reach a target which he will have to meet on a certain budget. The commissioner's performance on this score will be recorded in his annual confidential report, he underscored.
In the current fiscal the department was given Rs 61.69 crore for the purchase of computers, vehicles, furniture and training. It is not correct that the department is facing a shortage of essential infrastructure, he said.
In addition to financial support a record number of officials were given promotion during the year. While 10 became chief commissioners, 112 were promoted to the rank of commissioners and 58 to the
rank of deputy commissioners, he said. VDIS has been made a success on an extremely thin budget of Rs 27 crore which translates into an expenditure of a quarter paise for every rupee earned, the minister said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
