The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy-making body for the Income Tax (I-T) department, has asked the department to pull up their socks to step up the drive for targeted collection of revenue arrears as the figures show over 60% of shortfall in cash collection. As per the I-T department targeted projections of Rs 53.98 crore for the current fiscal, only Rs 19.68 crore has been collected till the end of November. CBDT further cleared that only about 37 per cent of the target has been achieved till now.
CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra said that the level of performance in this critical result area of the department's work is completely non-acceptable. Three quarters of the financial year are already over and not even 50 per cent of the target has been achieved which itself was fixed at a fraction of the total arrears outstanding.
Chandra has asked the department to take all measures for stepping up cash collection out of arrears as well as current demand so that not only the target set in this regard is met but significant contribution is also made towards achievement of the overall budget target of the regions (across the country), he has also sought collection of all due recoveries from all the regions that will boost the overall tax collection at the end of the current financial year on March 31 next year.