BHUBANESWAR: Buoyed by upswing in the economy, the regional Income Tax office has collected more than Rs. 3,300 crores during last fiscal.

"We have set a target of Rs 3,249 crores last fiscal. But the collection exceeded due to continuous persuasions and spurt in economic activities in the state," S.C Gupta, Regional Commissioner of IT said here on Wednesday.

Of Rs 3300-crore IT collection, corporate houses contributed slightly less than 60 per cent while rest came from individual tax payers, Mr.

Gupta said.

He said more than 5 lakh assesses were identified in the State while quite a few had paid tax over Rs 1 crore. The IT Commissioner, however, refused to give details on individual taxpayers.

Among corporate houses, public sector NALCO, Mahanadi Coal Limited and Orissa Mining Corporations were major contributors in the record collection during the last fiscal, Mr. Gupta said.

Focusing on another important issue, the IT Commissioner warned those organisations who had registered as charitable trust to take advantage of tax exemption but were involved in profitable works.

"We have detected a number of such institutions operating in Orissa who were getting IT exemptions by registering themselves as charitable or religious trust," Mr. Gupta said.

He said the commission had recently revoked three well-established institutions of the State after finding that they were generating a lot of income by not paying tax according to provisions of Income Tax Act 1961. "A few more such institutions are in pipelines to get similar treatment." Informing that Finance Act 2007 had removed the requirement of filing the application within one year of creation or establishment of the trust, Mr. Gupta said these institutions could file applications before June 1 and take advantage of tax benefits.

He served a veiled threat saying that those who would fail to register as charitable trust would be brought under tax bracket.

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