IT department vetting GST, civic licences in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh to widen tax net

BHOPAL: To widen the tax net, the income tax department has begun scrutiny of the data of traders registered with GST network as also with municipal corporations in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
The department has also written to municipal corporations in the state and the neighbouring Chhattisgarh, which is also under the MP income tax zone, to introduce a column for PAN in the application form for getting a shop and establishment licences.

"After scritinising the GST registration data, it has been found that 37,000 traders were not filing the income tax returns in the past years. We will now find out that how many of them would come under the income tax net," principal chief income tax commissioner for MP and Chhattisgarh Ajay Kumar Chouhan told reporters Friday.

He said the data of shop and establishment licences were also sourced from municipal corporations to check eligible income tax payers. The officials located such traders through geo-mapping.

"For example, the Indore civic body has issued about 1.67 lakh shop and establishment licences in the past few year. After scrutiny of the data, we have zeroed in on about 18,000 shopkeepers and letters were sent to them to find out their tax eligibility," he said.

Letters were also sent to municipal commissioners to introduce a column for PAN details in the application form of shop and establishment licences, he said.

"It has been difficult to find out taxpayers among these licenceholders without information of PAN," he said.

Chouhan said over 100 benami properties were also identified and action is being taken on them.

Sharing the tax collection data, he said collection in the zone in FY19 stood at Rs 23,334, while target of FY20 is pegged at Rs 28,967.

He said in FY19, as many as 7,06,487 new taxpayers were added in the two states, taking the total number to 45 lakh.