Confident of meeting the direct tax collection target for the current fiscal, the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram today said the Government would ensure a stable tax regime and a non-adversarial approach in revenue collection.
“We will ensure there is a stable tax regime, there are stable tax laws and everybody adopts a non-adversarial approach to tax collection,” he said after addressing Chief Commissioners and Directors-General of Income Tax.
“I have asked the Chief Commissioners to adopt a non-adversarial approach to tax collection. I have told the CCITs to repeat this message to all Commissioners, all Assistant Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners and ITOs,” he said.
Asking assessees to pay advances taxes by the due date, he said “paying taxes is a mark of civilisation. If I pay more taxes, I should be more happy and more proud. I am making more money and I am paying more taxes”.
The corporates would be paying the second instalment of advance tax and individuals their first instalment of advance tax by September 15.
“It is our intention to achieve the Rs 5,70,257-crore direct tax collection target for the current fiscal. We will be able to achieve the target,” he said, adding, collection is growing at 10.5 per cent against the asking rate of 15 per cent.
He exuded confidence that collection would improve in the second half of the current fiscal.
Noting that India is a low-tax country, Chidambaram said there was need to improve the tax-to-GDP ratio to 12 per cent.
The tax-to-GDP ratio has come down to 10.1 per cent from 11.9 per cent in 2007-08.