Jaswant Singh sets the ball rolling
Finance minister Jaswant Singh today told revenue department officials there should be no revenue slippage in this fiscal. He also asked the revenue department to work out detailed implications of the various tax proposals made in the Budget this year.
The minister made the comments during a meeting with P K Sarma and M K Zutshi, chairmen of the Central Board of Direct Tax and the Central Board of Excise and Customs, respectively. The meeting was meant to orient the minister with the functioning of the revenue department for the forthcoming parliamentary session beginning in a week.
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The revenue department has projected a growth rate of over 20 per cent in almost all categories of taxes with a near doubling of service tax from Rs 3,600 crore to Rs 6,200 crore. For the past few years, however, the revenue targets have always had to be lowered by the end of the fiscal. Singh asked the two chiefs to ensure that such an eventuality did not occur this time.
The minister also reviewed the state of revenue collection in the first quarter of the fiscal. While the two boards assured the minister that they were making all efforts to ensure that targets would be met, Singh asked for a detailed revenue projection from the individual tax measures. While the CBDT and CBEC prepare their tax estimates for each broad category, collections for individual taxes are difficult to assess.
However, sources said they had received no proposal from Singh to rework the tax proposals. They said in any case the process of reworking the provisions of the Finance Act, 2002, would be a long process that might stretch beyond a month.
The minister has already indicated that one of the primary thrust areas would be to revamp the tax administration. The two boards have also informed the minister about the progress that has already been made towards this end, including computerisation of returns, removal of procedural hurdles for clearing consignments from ports and airports and allocation of permanent account number for ensuring tax deduction at source.