Govt mulls publishing names of those owing Rs 1 cr tax arrear

The government is considering a proposal to publish names of people with "irrecoverable" tax arrears of more than Rs 1 crore, Parliament was informed today.
Currently, the limit for making public such names is Rs 5 crore.
"A proposal to publish names of persons with irrecoverable arrears of more than Rs 1 crore is under consideration as against the present limit of Rs 5 crores," Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.
Besides, the government has also published names of 18 income tax defaulters against whom outstanding tax dues is of the order of Rs 1,152.52 crore.

Of these, the highest amount of tax dues of Rs 779.04 crore is listed against (late) Uday M Acharya; Rs 68.21 crore is against Nexxoft Infotel Ltd; Rs 32.16 crore against Liverpool Retail India Ltd and Rs 32.13 crore dues against Jashubhai Jewellers Pvt Ltd.
Others include, Praful M Akhani (Rs 29.11 crore); Sakshi Exports (Rs 26.76 crore); Hemang C Shah (Rs 22.51 crore); Mohd Haji Alias Yusuf Motorwala (Rs 22.34 crore); Dharnendra Overseas Ltd (Rs 19.87 crore) and Jag Heet Exports Pvt Ltd (Rs 18.45 crore).

Sinha said all steps have been initiated to recover the pending dues from these entities.

In a separate reply, Sinha said India's tax collections rose during the April-January period of 2015-16 on various measures taken by government, economic activity and better compliance by tax payers.
During the period, direct tax collections increased by 10.87 per cent from a year ago to Rs 5.22 lakh crore.
The indirect tax collections increased by 33.7 per cent from a year earlier to Rs 5.69 lakh crore.
"The net direct and indirect tax collection during the current financial year 2015-16 is showing an overall positive growth as on January 31, 2016," he said.
In 2014-15, the direct tax collection was up 8.97 per cent to Rs 6.96 lakh crore, while the indirect tax collection during the previous fiscal stood at Rs 5.44 lakh crore, up 9.5 per cent from a year ago.