*Surpasses CBDT’s target by Rs 177 cr
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 3: Creating a history of sorts, the Income Tax Department has collected whopping Rs 1058 crore tax in Jammu and Kashmir during the just concluded financial year. In this way, the department has realized Rs 177.47 crore more tax against the target fixed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes.
Disclosing this to the media-persons at Aayakar Bhawan here, Commissioner of Income Tax, J&K Circle, A K Thatai, said that for the financial year 2013-14, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had fixed target of Rs 880.58 crore for Jammu and Kashmir Circle. The Income Tax Department has not only met the target but also exceeded the same by Rs 177.47 crore by collecting gross Rs 1058 crore tax.
Describing this whopping collection as a landmark achievement for the J&K Circle, Mr Thatai said, “the payment of taxes has been increased across the board in all spheres of business carried out in Jammu and Kashmir”, adding “cooperation extended by the assessees of the State and the strenuous efforts of the IT sleuths have helped the department to make a very difficult task quite possible”.
He informed that total target for the Chief Commissioner of Income Tax Amritsar under whose jurisdiction the J&K Circle falls was to the tune of Rs 1220.71 crore. “Out of this, target of Rs 880.58 crore was fixed for J&K thereby making it a daunting task for us to achieve the target”, Mr Thatai added.
The target of Rs 880.58 crore was Rs 184.15 crore more than the target for the financial year 2012-13 when it was Rs 696.43 crore. However, J&K Circle has created a history of sorts by not only meeting the target but also exceeding the collections by a convincing amount of Rs 177.47 crore that too with marginal increase in the number of assessees during the just concluded financial year.
He further informed that during the financial year 2013-14, the J&K Circle even issued refunds to the tune of Rs 96 crore as against Rs 76 crore during the financial year 2012-13. “Due to this, the net collection of the tax remained Rs 961.20 crore but the same is also Rs 80.62 crore more than the targets fixed by the CBDT”, Mr Thatai added.
In response to a question, the IT Commissioner said that out of net collection of Rs 961.20 crore, Rs 644.39 crore tax was paid by the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, which is a corporate assessee, and Rs 316.81 crore by other assessees.
Out of Rs 961.20 crore net tax collection during the financial year 2013-14, Rs 778.31 crore was collected by Range-I, Rs 104.37 crore by Range-II (both having jurisdiction over Jammu region) and Rs 174.52 crore by Range-3 having jurisdiction over entire Kashmir valley.
“Another noteworthy achievement made by the J&K Circle is recovery of arrear demand to the tune of Rs 51 crore against target of Rs 72 crore”, he said.
Responding to another query, Mr Thatai said that in order to bring tax evaders to book, the Department carried out 16 survey operations and launched prosecution against 24 defaulters for concealment of income and non-payment of taxes to the department. However, during the financial year 2012-13, twelve survey operations were carried out while as prosecution launched against 11 defaulters.
The IT Commissioner also highlighted the steps being taken by the department towards ensuring a transparent and judicious tax administration.
Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), B B Singh, Rakesh Kumar, Joint Commissioner Range-II, R K Kakar, Joint Commissioner Range-I and Mini Chandran U, DCIT (Hqrs) also interacted with the media-persons on different points.
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