In a clear warning to those concealing high-value purchases, finance minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday asked them to pay up taxes and file their returns by July 31 or face action from the tax authorities.
My advice to all those who have made large transactions like buying property of over Rs 30 lakh or bought mutual funds or made credit card payments exceeding Rs 2 lakh in a year is to please file tax returns before July 31, he said.
The minister made the statement after the inauguration of the two-day annual conference of chief commissioners and director generals of income-tax.
Pointing that the department was armed with data garnered from the annual information return (AIR) process, he said all names churned out would be reached, sooner or later.These are not poor, lower middle class or salaried people. These are high net worth people. If not today, in three, six or nine months, the income-tax people will reach them, he said.
AIR has brought to fore 17,52,652 high value transactions involving 6,60,000 separate parties. Of these, only 1,84,980 parties have quoted PAN numbers, he said.
The remaining 4,75,019 parties were without PAN numbers. Acknowledging that there may be some overlaps, the minister said it was in the interest of these over 6 lakh parties to file their returns before the due date of July 31.
Observing that direct taxes collections were growing at an average rate of about 25% over the last two fiscals, he said the government was targeting a growth of 27.7 % this fiscal. On the borrowing programme, he said the target of Rs 1,52,856 crore set for the current fiscal year would not be exceeded and exuded confidence that direct tax and fiscal deficit targets would be met.
The finance minister said the draft of the new income-tax should be ready this month after which it would be sent to the law ministry. The government had notified borrowing of Rs 9,000 crore on June 22, which was Rs 4,000 crore more than the original schedule in a bid to suck out excess liquidity and for cash management purposes.
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