FM Rajendranath for Streamlining of Tax Administration

VIJAYAWADA: Expressing his disappointment over the country’s aggregated tax collection from all sources, which is around 16-18 per cent of the GDP, finance minister Buggana Rajendranath has said the central and state tax authorities must streamline tax administration across the nation and raise the tax-to-GDP ratio to 32-40 per cent.

The minister was addressing the TIOL National Taxation Awards 2023, after the ‘TIOL Tax Congress 2023’ - India’s pioneering forum for deliberations on hot-button taxation, trade and state finance issues, in New Delhi on Thursday.

Former chairperson of CBIC, Praveen Mahajan, former chairman of CBDT, MC Joshi, former chairman, PwC, Deepak Kapoor, and CEO of Mapple Highways Anup Vikal attended the events.

Emphasizing that taxation was one of the most difficult areas of governance, the finance minister said, “Rather than the current state of evasion and enforcement of taxes, we should move on to an environment wherein the central and state tax administrations work closely to ensure that our ‘tax collection to GDP ratio’ increases to the level of the developed world’s ratio of around 32 to 40 per cent -- from current 16 to 18 per cent here.”

“The present AP government has introduced revolutionary reforms in this sector, including fine-tuning our tax administration based on best practices of other states, establishing dashboard-based live monitoring, faceless registration, creation of a legal cell within the department, as also the scrutiny automation tool and in-house data analytics unit to ensure robust tax administration, which promotes the spirit of willful tax payment.”

The ‘Gold’ trophy was handed over to Haryana, adjudged the ‘best reformist state’ for the year 2022, out of the bunch of TIOL national taxation awards 2023. Maharashtra received Silver medal while Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat the special ‘jury award’ for their remarkable progress in the business and taxation ecosystem.

In the Deemed category, Income Tax DG Systems received Gold in ‘Institutional Game Changer’ sub-category, whereas ICEGATE – DG Systems, CBIC, received the Silver medal and FIEO and NSDL got special jury awards.

In the ‘Income Tax Zone’ of 3rd sub-category the tax commissionerates, Mumbai and Delhi zones received Gold and Silver respectively, while Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry zones got the special jury award.

The Ahmedabad and Chennai zones secured Gold and Silver respectively, whereas Pune and Hyderabad zones settled for special jury awards under Customs Zone of the 3rd sub-category.

The awards for ‘CGST Zone’ under same sub-category went to Bengaluru zone (Gold), Chennai zone (Silver) and special jury awards to Thiruvananthapuram and Meerut zones, while Maharashtra (Gold), Uttar Pradesh (Silver), Andhra Pradesh (Jury award) and Chhattisgarh (Jury award) were the winners in ‘SGST/ State VAT’ under 3rd sub-category (tax commissionerate).

A book titled ‘Reforms in Tax Administration: An Indian Experience’ written by Pratap Singh, Principal CIT and a special print publication by TIOL ‘Taxation in India – Compliance by design’ were released.

Shailendra Kumar, chairman of TIOL Knowledge Foundation, said, “The aim of this Congress is to groom India’s thought leadership in economic, trade, taxation and finance domains at the global-level. To attain such a goal during the Amrit Kaal, the TIOL Tax Congress has gradually expanded the basket of issues to be deliberated upon for possible policy prescriptions for the law-makers and the policy-makers at both the Centre and the states.”