NEW DELHI: With barely four days left for the end of the financial year, and the tax collection much below the government target, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has written to all senior tax officials warning them of an alarming situation.
“A head-wise analysis of regulator assessment tax (recovery from arrears and current demand) indicated a worsening trend of negative growth in regular collection at minus 6.9 per cent, as against a minus 5.2 per cent in mid-March,” the CBDT said in a letter dated March 26 to principal chief commissioners of income tax.
Till March 26, direct tax collection was Rs 10.29 lakh crore, which is 12.5 per cent up compared to the same period a year ago. The revised Budget target for 2018-19 is Rs 12 lakh crore.
“Progress based on the online tax accounting system was reviewed and only 85.1 per cent has been collected as of March 23,” the letter said.
It said the collection was poor despite discussing various strategies with the officials. “The board has discussed strategies through various communications with you (I-T officials) and it was expected that by this time, your strategies would have succeeded, resulting into improved collections. However, the figures of collection give a different account.”
As reported earlier by The New Indian Express, the revenue collection is likely to fall short by about Rs 70,000 crore. As per the Interim Budget, the government revised the GST target from Rs 7.44 lakh crore to Rs 6.44 lakh crore, which insiders had still flagged as ‘difficult to achieve’.
“The target set by the interim Budget was very ambitious and not practical. This is making our job difficult. Generally last two three days, the collections are high. We are trying our best but our estimation is that it could still fall short of Rs 70,000 -75,000 crore,” an official said.