BHUBANESWAR: The Income Tax Department has set a target to collect Rs 12,151 crore revenue for the 2018-19 financial year. Informing this to media persons here, member Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Prasanna Kumar Dash said, “Against the target of Rs 9,728 crores fixed for the last financial year, Odisha region collected Rs 10,215 crore.”
“In this fiscal, the region has already collected Rs 5,880 crore and achieved a growth rate of 27.32 per cent till November end compared to the corresponding period in the last fiscal. Accordingly, we have fixed the revenue target at Rs 12,151 crore for this fiscal,” he said and added that the present growth rate of tax collection of Odisha region is the third largest in all India ranking.
The IT officials said most of the top taxpayers in the State belong to mining and corporate sector. There are some mine owners who are the highest taxpayers, they said. The target fixed seems achievable as the collection till date stands at 48.4 per cent, said Dash adding that the Department also aims to add 2.5 lakh more individuals to tax bracket. “The total number of taxpayers has increased 20 pc from 8,56,796 at the beginning of the fiscal to 10,27,796 now. More assesses will be added to taxpayers fold to achieve the target,” the member CBDT said.
During his interaction with Tax Bar Association and Institute of Chartered Accountants of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, he asked them to conduct free legal aid camps for senior citizens and quick disposal of TDS cases.
Dash, meanwhile, also asked IT ranges in Odisha to work towards making their ranges grievance free. “A competition will be held in this regard soon,” he said.
Income Tax Commissioner for Administration Asit Mohapatra said, Odisha has 12 IT ranges and the competition will be held among all. The ranges who settle all the cases within 30 days will be declared grievance free range. Around 100 grievances are lodged in each of the IT ranges every month he said.