As part of efforts to check evasion and raise direct tax collections, government is planning to use permanent account number (PAN) as a ‘common business number’ and make it mandatory for quoting it in all notified transactions.“Use of PAN as a common business number is part of measures to check tax evasion,” finance ministry officials told PTI here on Wednesday.Measures are also afoot at the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to ensure that PAN is quoted on all returns and tax payment challans, TDS certificates and all notified transactions, the officials said. Other steps being considered by the department include electronic data exchange with other departments using a common data format, data warehousing of financial transactions and automated selection of cases for scrutiny.A system for PAN verification and updating would also be introduced in the coming months. In order to facilitate tax payers, the CBDT is also considering direct credit of tax refunds through electronic clearance scheme of the Reserve Bank.“The department is also planning a centralised mass processing for disposal of returns in the same year, an interactive voice response system (IVRS) and bulk filing of salary returns through electronic medium,” they said.CBDT may shortly start processing of all tax returns on computers, the officials added.The CBDT has also drawn up its perspective plan for 2002-05 on computerisation which includes networking the remaining 418 stations to bring all officers on ‘tax net’, developing a software for security and enterprise-wide resource management, the sources said. “Data available with the CBDT is sensitive in nature and needs to be protected from unauthorised access and virus attacks. This requires deployment of sophisticated security software,” CBDT official said.
