Centre to soon fix delays in tax refunds, says top I-T official

The Dollar Business Bureau The government is making all out efforts to fix the problems of delay in tax refunds being faced by taxpayers, a top Income Tax department official said. “If you have excess collected, or if, based upon appeal effect or for whatever reason, refund is due which you have not got for long time, we are trying to resolve these problems,” said Nutan Sharma, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax-TDS (Tax Deduction at Sources). Sharma said that the functionality is already available with TDS assessing officers and it will be operational very soon. “Some issues regarding fate of the old cases and others we have taken up with CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes) and very soon we are trying to resolve all those things so that there is no problem in getting the returns to you,” she said at a seminar on TDS organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM). She admitted that the department was helpless in dealing with those who default in depositing TDS. Tax deductors, after deducting TDS from specified payments, deliberately do not deposit the taxes in government account. This gives rise to a large number of grievances from public. “Deductors have been prosecuted despite that they are not paying into the government’s account and there we are kind of helpless as to what has to be done in those cases,” she added. On the problems faced by the income tax authorities in verification of top deductors and defaulters, she said that such problems can be resolved by enforcing the TDS rules effectively. She said the department was not able to achieve its target in collection due to delay in legal procedures. “It consumes a lot of our precious time in answering to courts for genuine things. We also want that compounding should be done as quickly as possible and prosecution should be launched in as less number of cases as possible,” she said, adding that the department wants to educate people so to avoid any coercive measures as it wastes a lot of time, creates tension and causes hindrance in creating a non-adversarial tax environment. To improve tax collections, the official suggested greater interaction between the industry and government. Citing the example of Delhi, Sharma said, “With our great efforts and co-operation from industry, we ended up with a growth rate of 13.65% in Delhi which is very creditworthy as Delhi got the singular distinction of achieving and exceeding its budget and TDS was instrumental in this regard.”    

May 14, 2015 | 8:08 pm IST.