Government needs money, and it needs it really badly to fill its coffers. The deficit situation in Indian is not getting better even after taking multiple measures including stake sale of PSU companies.
Now, it has turned its attention to tax-payers (actually non-tax-payers) to salvage the poor deficit situation in the country. The Income Tax Department has identified 12,19,832 Tax-non-filers linked to more than 4.7 crore information records collected over past years. These are essentially the people who have executed large transactions (identified based on their PAN cards) and are the ones who have not filed taxes.
The business intelligence project carried out by Income Tax Department identifies PAN card holders who have not filed Income Tax Return and about whom specific information is available in 148 information codes of Annual Information Return (AIR), Central Information Branch (CIB) data and TDS/TCS Returns. Information in the Cash Transaction Reports (CTRs) of FIU-IND has also been included to identify the tax defaulters.
Out of over 12 lakh non-tax filers, Directorate of Intelligence and Criminal Investigation has sent letters to 35,170 PAN holders who have been identified as high-priority cases. This letter has summary of financial transactions and customized response sheet which basically is designed to seek information on PAN holders tax-filings till date.
Nodal agencies have also been setup across the country to capture the responses from these high-priority cases and subsequent recovery of tax dues!
How Many people file Taxes in India?
Did you know that in a country of 120 crore people, only about 3.24 Crore people filed taxes for financial year 2011-12. Which means on an average less than 3 out 100 people actually file taxes.
Even out of those 3.24 crore people who file taxes, 89% pay taxes in the tax slab of 0 – 5 Lakh rupees, while on the other end of spectrum, only 1.3% of all tax payers have income about 20 Lakh! Check out this article, and you will be surprised with some of the stats on Tax payers in India.
A simple rule to follow – Paying Taxes and filing Tax Returns is not an option, Its Mandatory!
