The CAG has pulled up the Income Tax Department for not recovering tax arrears worth over Rs 4,500 crore from various entities due to a lack of coordination between two of its wings. The government auditor, in its latest report tabled in Parliament, said it found several cases where the Assessing Officers (AOs) did not communicate updated information relating to demands to Tax Recovery Officers (TROs).

Both direct and indirect tax arrears increased by about 33% to Rs 3.9 lakh crore in 2010-11. Minister of State for Finance SS Palanimanickam, while replying to different questions in Rajya Sabha, informed that direct tax arrears worth Rs 3,33,077 crore were not realised, while it was Rs 56,889.62 crores in the case of indirect taxes.

Question. The dealer has purchased plant along with land from Financial Institution in auction. The original owner of plant was declared sick unit and was liable to discharge sales tax dues for past years. The Sales Tax Department is contemplating to recover the said dues from the dealer who has purchased the plant and land in auction. Whether the department is justified in such demand?

Income-tax arrears against assessees — of Rs 2,01,276 crore as on March 31, 2009 — have once again become an issue, as Parliament’s standing committee on finance has asked the Department of Revenue and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to put in place a Management Information System (MIS) within three months for collating and retrieving data concerning appeals, pendency disposal and recovery.

The total tax arrears have galloped to nearly Rs 2 lakh crore till September 30, 2009, an amount sufficient to fund at least half of the government’s budget deficit for the current financial year. But, surprisingly, the government has said that it can only recover Rs 13,000 crore, about 6.5% of the total outstanding, from corporates and individuals on whom the tax is pending.

The Finance Ministry has come up with a dispute resolution scheme as a one-time measure for quick resolution of disputes involving small service tax amounts up to Rs 25,000. However, cases involving non-payment of service tax after having collected the same from clients/customers are not included in the scheme. This compounding scheme would be in operation from July 1 to September 30. It would also not apply to cases where the tax arrears includes service tax amount of over Rs 25,000.