Principal Commissioner, Income Tax department (J&K), Sangeeta Gupta, said the tax collection in Kashmir is satisfactory with J&K Bank being the highest taxpayer in the state.
Talking to us, Gupta said JK Bank continues to be the highest taxpayer in the state. “Our collections from Kashmir have increased considerably,” she said.“Despite floods our collections in Kashmir are showing upward trend,” she said, adding that in this quarter the department had collected Rs 43.5 crore tax in the state as compared to Rs 29.3 crore during the corresponding period last year.
Gupta who has recently taken over as Principal Commissioner I-T for JK said that her focus is to encourage people to pay taxes “as the money they contribute comes back to them in terms of development.”
“JK has a special status in the country, and people here should know that if they pay Rs 100 as tax, government of India repays them 100 per cent more, which would help the state in development and building infrastructure,” she said.
Gupta said in one year I-T department has fixed the target to increase assesses base by 1 lakh.
“Currently in JK, there are 13 lakh PAN card holders but out of this only 84,000 pay taxes. It means even that many people are evading tax which is not good,” she said adding that the department is working to bring them under the taxpaying bracket.
The Principal Commissioner said that IT department has well established computerized mechanisms which enable it to detect transactions being made by people. “On the basis of the information generated by the software, the department sends notices to people who don’t file ITR or don’t pay taxes, with proof of their investments or transactions they have made.”
“We have so far sent 35000 notices in Jammu and 10000 in Kashmir and in the next few days more than 10000 notices would be send in the summer capital,” she said, adding that this method helps them to bring non-filers under taxpaying bracket.
Gupta said that I-T department would create awareness among stakeholders and general public to encourage them to pay Income tax and inform them that the taxes they pay would help their development.
She said the department throughout the country has been tasked by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to widen assessee base.
“If we see the data of tax payers, out of total population of 125 crore only 3.25 crore people in India pay taxes,” she said adding that IT department has set a target to increase the number of assessees by 1 crore this year.
