Income tax department sending reminders to 12 lakh to file ITR

Income tax department tightens the grip to those people who do not wish to pay income tax. The department has started letters to those people who are high spenders but do not file income tax return. In this move the department has chosen 12 lakh people for sending letters.

 According to department officials "The I-T department has started follow up of around 12 lakh assessee who have not filed their returns despite being high spenders,"  

Out of these 12 lakh people, in the first move, the department already issued letters to 175000 assessee who are high spenders but not file income tax return.

The government wants to collect as much as it can the revenue from direct taxes and in this move Finance Minister met the Income tax officials on 27 June 2013. They discuss about widen the tax base to increase revenue collection.

Department has set up a compliance management cell to trace the records of the people of spending and filing the return. With the help of this cell, the department has prepared a list of high spenders who do not file income tax return and includes in tax evasion.

This got positive response earlier when 1.75 lakh letters issued to the assessee as many have started filing income tax return.

The finance ministry officials had verified the record of annual information return (AIR), Central Information Branch (CIB) and TDS/TCS returns. Besides, they had also verified data available with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

Government has set up the target of 6.68lakh crore this year compare to 5.65 lakh crore previous year.