Taxpayers can heave a sigh of relief

Satisfied with the direct tax collections for the first quarter and confident of achieving the set targets, tax authorities are in the seventh heaven.

They are unlikely to resort to the most dreaded measures of income surveys, searches and raids thereby giving good relief to taxpayers.

Voluntary compliance by taxpayers has been quite good and the department is confident this trend will continue.  The steps taken by the finance ministry to elicit tax compliance such as annual information returns, banking cash transaction tax, etc. have proved effective.

Direct tax collections including corporate tax, personal tax, fringe benefit tax, securities transaction tax and banking cash transaction tax have all registered remarkable growth in comparison to the preceding year.

Moreover with the shortage of manpower and increased work of TDS returns (which incidentally has led to greater tax compliance), the income tax officials would be highly tight hand in taking more cases for scrutiny.