Audit Reports
Direct Tax
Report No. 4 of 2013 - Performance Audit of Strengthening the Tax base through use of Information-Union Government, Department of Revenue - Direct Taxes
Overview
Strengthening the tax base is arguably one of the most important aspects of the direct tax management. The Income Tax Department (ITD) uses 'pieces of information' arising from different sources to strengthen the tax database, in addition to the information available in the income tax returns/provided by the assessee during assessment.
Central Information Branch (CIB) of ITD collects, uploads information to the ITD Systems and disseminates to the Assessing Officers (AOs). There are 17 formations of CIB across the Country under the Director General of Income Tax (Intelligence and Criminal Investigation). Agencies submit information to CIB or TIN Facilitation Centres of National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) on behalf of ITD. This flows through CIB Module of ITD Systems software administered by the Director General of Income Tax (Systems).
Annual Central Action Plans of ITD target an increase of 15 per cent per year in assessee base. Against this, annual increase during the ten year period from FY 02 to FY11 was only 3.1 percent (from 262 lakh to 336 lakh assessees).