Even as the Government has expedited efforts to bring back illicit funds stashed abroad, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday asked Income Tax department to also focus on domestic black money and “chase” sectors where it is most prevalent.
Addressing the senior officers of the Central Board of Direct taxes (CBDT), he asked tax officials to be assessee friendly while aiming at widening the tax base.
Jaitley said the revenue department officials should not “lose sight of domestic black money keeping in view its much high magnitude”. “He asked the senior officers of the I-T department to make their best efforts to chase those sectors where the domestic black money is most prevalent,” a finance ministry statement said.
“The recovery of black money and taxes due thereon will also help the department in achieving its tax collection targets,” Jaitley added. The Minister was speaking at a review meeting of Principal Chief Commissioners, Principal Directors General, Chief Commissioners of I-T on Thursday order to assess the revenue collection target for 2014-15 fiscal.
With the rise in economic activity, Jaitley expects the revenue collection targets to be achieved. Gross income tax collection grew 13.6 per cent to over Rs3.77 lakh crore between April-October 20. The net collections stood at over Rs2.96 lakh crore. The government aims to collect Rs7.36 lakh crore from direct taxes in current fiscal.
Jaitley said: “Senior officers of the department shall act and behave in a assessee friendly manner but at the same time ensure that tax payers do not evade tax and must pay the taxes due from them”.
The Government gave to the Supreme Court a list of 627 Indians who have accounts in HSBC Bank, Geneva, in which tax probe for suspected black money has to be completed by March next year. A Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) will conduct a probe against the account holders.
Meanwhile, Supreme Court-appointed SIT said it is looking into the blackmoney cases and would go after the offenders “big or small”. It added that it would submit its report by the first week of December. It also made clear that confidentiality about account holders abroad will not be violated. The SIT said it was gathering more names other than the over 600 account holders in HSBC bank, Geneva, given by the government to Supreme Court yesterday, for investigation.
“The second report would be given to Supreme Court on December 3 or 4,” Justice Shah told PTI after a meeting of SIT members here on Thursday. Its first report was submitted in August this year.