Virtual filing on the cards

To spare the salaried class the hassles of filing "actual" tax returns, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today promised them "virtual" filing in the long run.

"Not in the medium-term, but in the long-term, as electronic filing becomes a norm, we will find some way in which there is virtual "" not actual "" filing of returns," he said at a press on the sidelines of the Congress plenary session here.

The clamour from scribes for some clarification about the "virtual" system, however, drew only cryptic smiles from the finance minister.

"What that will be will be unfolded in due course of time" was all that he was willing to say.

Hinting that the government was reluctant to widen the tax exemption net any further "" as had been demanded by central trade unions "" he said there was already a very high savings ratio.

Tax exemption was up to Rs 1 lakh plus exemption on savings was up to Rs one lakh, he said. "But all salaried people deserve that," quipped a smiling Chidambaram.

Defending the government's decision to set the interest on employees' provident fund at 8.5 per cent, he said even at that rate, the deficit came to Rs 356 crore. The EPFO had to find resources.

If the EPFO invested its resources in a different manner, it (more interest rate) could be possible, but that had to be decided by the trustees, he said.The finance minister said he would hold a meeting with Left leaders to discuss their alternative proposal for resource mobilisation on February 2 or 4.

Asked whether the government had issued yet another tax notice to film star Amitabh Bachchan, he said he was not aware of it as he had been out of the country during this period.

As for the earlier controversy, he clarified that two notices had been sent to the film star to his home address, and not to the hospital where he was undergoing treatment. No notice was served to him at the hospital's ICU and no officer had visited him there, he asserted.