The UPA government will continue tax reforms, including reducing tax rates to Asean levels, in the coming years, improve administration and make enforcement stricter to check evasion, finance minister P Chidambaram said today.He also announced a slew of measures including 'help centres' for small tax payers and e-payment facilities for 5,500 large companies to improve tax administration and push up collections.Chidambaram indicated that the government intended to rely more on information and intelligence in the days to come rather than on search and seizures to check tax evasion and avoidance."Tax reform is an on-going process. In course of time, it is our endeavour to bring down the tax rates to the Asean level," he said after launching an e-payment service for excise and service tax.Asserting that the UPA has kept its promise of carrying out reforms in both direct and indirect taxes, he said India will soon have tax rates that are the best in the world.Chidambaram, however, took a dig at those who were still evading taxes, saying tax evasion and avoidance have emerged as an "interesting business". "If non-tax payers pay taxes, tax rates could be further moderated," he said."Tax rates must be moderate, tax administration should be user-friendly and enforcement impartial and strict," he said, adding non-tax payers will be eager to pay taxes if the administration is impartial and user-friendly.While hinting at impartial and stricter enforcement of taxes, Chidambaram said: "I don't believe in heavy handedness. In certain cases, we have to resort to search and seizures. But it is a thing of the past and will be replaced by information gathering and intelligent use of that information."Reeling out statistics, he said only 80,000-85,000 individuals show income of Rs 10,00,000 and above. "I am sure the number is much higher than that. Therefore, we must find those who are not paying taxes," he said.He said the annual information reporting, bank cash transaction tax and tax information network will enable the tax departments to gather information, use them intelligently and track down tax evaders.
