Mangalore: Jun 2 (DHNS) : Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mangalore organised an interactive meeting with Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Panjim Pankaj Gupta at KCCI hall on Monday. 

Addressing the gathering, Gupta said that budget collection of the country has been fixed at Rs 4,30,000 crore for the fiscal year 2010-11. Last year, it was Rs 3.77,000 crore and with this, the target has been increased by 14 per cent this year, meeting which is a challenge to the department.

“There are as many as 9 crore PAN card holders of which only 3 crore are filing their returns. The department has the challenge of bridging the huge gap between the card holders and payers and increase the collection,” he informed

He said that the tax regime in the country is quite reasonable and the lower tax rate is expected to continue even in future.

Some of the participants shared their experience with regard to Tax Deduction at the Source (TDS) system and spoke how they faced problems in the system.  Responding to them Gupta said that though TDS is a major source of income for the department, they will have to agree that there are certain problems existing in the system, which needs to solved soon, to make the system user friendly. Responding to the query as to whether actions are taken up by IT Department with regard to the cases of Lokayukta raid on Government officials, Gupta said that when the enforcing agency shares the details with the IT department, the department can take action. Most often the details will be confidential and hence IT department can not do much in this regard. However there have been cases where action have been taken against the Government officials in this background