Chennai, Oct 28: Scrutiny of income tax returns filed by tax payers has been done away with completely from the current financial year, with a view to encourage tax payers, A Balasubramaniam, Chairman Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said today.Addressing an interactive session organised by the Madras Chamber of Commerce here, Balasubramaniam said that the income tax department had been progressively doing away with the same for the last three years considering the increasing level of compliance on the part of tax payers filing returns.The chairman said there would not be any more random selection on the basis of any previously recorded evidence of underreporting of income for scrutiny from this fiscal. However, the Chief Income Tax Commissioner reserved the right to order scrutiny in cases where underreporting was quite blatant, Balasubramaniam added. The level of compliance had gone up considerably during the last three years as also the approach of the IT officials, The chairman said. However, tax payers' compliance and cooperation from IT officials were yet to reach world standards.``Both have to grow simultaneously in order to reach that level and it would take another four or five years,'' The chairman said. Balasubramaniam said almost 98 per cent of pan cards have been distributed so far and added that with computerisation programme already on, it was hoped that shortly the pan cards would be available online. Balasubramaniam said instructions had already been issued to accept pan card applications from now on without considering whether it had been applied for earlier and issue the same within weeks.Referring to the various structural reforms being undertaken by the Department, Balasubramaniam said processing of returns of salaried class through computer would be complete by March next in all the metros and selected towns. Computerised processing of fresh returns would commence from April 2001. Filing of returns online was also on the anvil Balasubramaniam said.Computerised processing of returns filed by trade and business was next on the agenda which, he said, would come into effect by 2002. Balasubramaniam said 30 centres had already been interlinked and in turn these centres were also linked to the three metros Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. Responding to various issues raised at the session, he said that the tax rates had already been considerably reduced in the last three to four years with a view to broaden the taxbase. ``We will follow the same in the coming fiscal also,'' he added.However, Balasubramaniam also ruled out that the possibility of further bringing down the corporate tax adding that this was difficult mainly due to the various kinds of exemptions and concessions being allowed to business and trade. However, Balasubramaniam admitted that bringing foreign nationals using e-commerce in India, under the country's tax net, was difficult as they would find the Indian tax structure quite alien and unaccomodative. Balasubramaniam added that the Board of Direct Taxes had already started discussing the issue with them.
