The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Synergy of taxpayer and tax officials

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 29, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Synergy of taxpayer and tax officials

Special Correspondent

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Successful venture: (From left) R. Prasad, Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes; P.V. Bhide, Revenue Secretary, Ministry of Finance; and John M. Panikar, President, BCIC, at the seminar in Bangalore on Wednesday.

Bangalore: Union Revenue Secretary P.V. Bhide told members of the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) here on Wednesday that “the Bangalore experiment of a Large Taxpayer Unit (LTU) has been successful to encourage us set up a similar unit in Chennai in December, followed by units in Mumbai and Delhi. This arrangement of assessees required to pay Rs. 5 crore and above, either as Income Tax, Central Excise or others, under one roof, has improved interaction between taxpayers and taxation officers”. R. Prasad, Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes, said any taxation system could work only with voluntary compliance and the LTU here was making this possible. “The feedback is that most taxpayers now find a different atmosphere and attitude among tax officials and all queries and appeals are dealt with faster. This has improved mutual understanding of the tax collector’s and taxpayer’s roles.” K.S. Nair, Chief Commissioner, LTU, Bangalore, said that within one year, the unit had showed tangible results. “We could clear 100 cases of tax refunds worth Rs. 1,331 crore and encourage 90 per cent of assessees to go for e-payment of their taxes. Central Excise collection went up by 40 per cent and Service Taxes by 31 per cent in one year ,” he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka