FM Directs CBT To Focus On Compliance, Widening Taxpayer Base

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Tuesday, as part of a review meeting, notified finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman of additional information about 30 million persons due to the newly introduced data sources in Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT).

The review meeting considered the key issue of increasing the efforts on the taxpayer’s base.

According to an official statement, Sitharaman encouraged CBDT to expand and strengthen its efforts to develop taxpayers' awareness of the direct tax laws' provisions and compliance.

She said, CBDT should take timely and appropriate action against taxpayers for all applications and should set a reasonable timeframe for the disposal of such applications.

The finance minister further highlighted the steady increase of the Personal Income Tax to GDP ratio from 2.11 in FY 15 to 2.94 in FY 22.

She then reviewed the pending disciplinary proceeding cases against employees and officers and suggested, minimisation of the administrative and procedural delays. She further directed CBDT to take prompt action in the finalisation of such proceedings.

Meanwhile, the finance ministry hinted at the increase with the introduction of new data sources in SFT like dividend and interest, securities, mutual funds and information from GSTN in recent years by 1,118 per cent.

Subsequently, it added the introduction of new TDS codes that doubled the unique deducts to 92 million in FY22 from 48 crore in FY16. Considering the last eight years it concluded the new TDS codes doubled from 36 to 95 leading to a total report transaction increase in FY 2021-22 to 1.44 billion in comparison to the total reported transactions in FY 2015-16 of 700 million.