Sunday, March 30, 2014

IT Department can be more effective to improve compliance and tax revenues

The IT officials do not seem to have fertile imagination and chase fellows who make hell of a money in the economy.With the boom of the economy after itsliberalisation the Construction industries have expanded and the number of flats and houses built have increased leaps and bounds increasing employment and business opportunities left and right particularly in cities making the labour costly and rarely available. This boom has generated a lot of small businessmen doing Carpentry, furnishing and providing varieties of small services and charging the service takers in lakhs and lakhs exploiting the middle class . For instance just for carpentry work  ie to cover a balcony and provide a two bed room kitchen with  ward robes, they charge anything betweenRs 15lakhs and Rs 20 lakhs and most of the service providers do not take take cheque or any other mode of payment other than cash. It is doubtful whether these persons have heard of sales and Income tax.There are thousands of such businessmen and like this there are several big fish as well avoiding and evading taxes in urban and metropolitan centres. Leaving them, the IT dept is after the retired pensioners and harassing them for a pittance if any at all is something strange and not comprehensible. If the the evasion of tax is plugged the fiscal defit can be wiped out and there can be suufficient surpluses to reduce the rate of Income tax and better compliance. The economy will also  be in good shape and the society also will have the awareness to pay tax and mintain some ethics and values to be proud of. The IT department also can have the satisfaction of doing their job effectively benefiting the Department and themselves for improved tax compliance.

Dr.T.V.Gopalakrishnan

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