Apprehensive over a massive deficit in TDS collections, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has mandated Income Tax (IT) department to initiate special measures to achieve the direct taxes collection target for this fiscal. The board has directed I-T officials to bolster their efforts and give special emphasis on tax collections under the Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) and Advance Tax categories.

This development comes on the heels of TDS collections slipping by 50% for the fiscal. For FY2013-14, the growth under this head was 16.73%, while in FY2014-15 the growth slipped to 7.84%. The budgeted target under the direct tax category has been pegged at Rs 7.36 lakh crore for the current fiscal, while the collection has summed up to Rs 5,46,661 crore till January 23, according to CBDT.

Further, the apex policy making body of the I-T department, also asked the taxman to ensure that those assessees who have made handsome self-assessment tax declarations should be tapped to deposit it as advance tax so that the figures could be collated and reflected in this fiscal, which will end December 31.

In order to ensure better TDS and Advance Tax collections, I-T officials have been asked to make on-spot visits to defaulting organisations and also interact with officials and individuals responsible under the established official mechanism in this regard.

The department, which is confident of surpassing the budgeted tax target, has been facing a big challenge on this front because of the issuance of large amounts of refunds. The contribution of TDS to the overall gross direct taxes collections during 2013-14 fiscal was Rs 2,71,069 crore, which is 17.88% higher than the collections shown under this head from Rs 2,29,943 crore during 2012-13. Thus, the TDS category contributes over 37% to the gross direct taxes collections.