Jaitley says govt is committed to widen tax base by incentivising new tax payers

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that government is committed to widen the tax base by encouraging and incentivising the new tax payers in the country.

“Number of tax payers increased significantly from 4.72 cr in financial year 2012-13 to 6.26 crore during Financial Year 2016-17,” said Jaitley.

Jaitley said that Direct Tax Revenue Collections up to 18 Sept, 2017 in current FY 2017-18 rose to Rs. 3.7 lakh crore with growth of 15.7 per cent.

Earlier, Jailey said that the Direct tax figures are 15.7% over and above last year's figure.

Jaitley, who also holds the Corporate Affairs portfolio, told Member of Parliaments that the Income Tax Department has taken “various initiatives in the last 2-3 years in order to bring about efficiency, transparency and fairness in tax administration”, said a finance ministry release.

Speaking about the initiatives, the finance minister said that a Single Page ITR-1 (SAHAJ) Form was introduced for tax payers having income up to Rs 50 lakhs.

The tax rate for individuals having income of Rs 2.5 lakhs to Rs 5 lakhs was reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent, which is one among the lowest in the world, he said.

Jaitley further said the concept of ‘no scrutiny’ was introduced for the first time non-business tax payers having income up to Rs 5 lakh so that “more and more people are encouraged” to join the tax net and file their IT returns and pay the due amount of taxes.

The finance minister said 97 per cent of the income tax returns were filed electronically this year, out of which 92 per cent returns were processed within 60 days and 90 per cent refunds were also issued within 60 days.

With PTI inputs