Show Sensitivity to Honest Taxpayers, Panel Tells IT Dept

Tax authorities should be "sensitive" to the hardships faced by honest taxpayers due to wrong or inflated demands and take feedback from the public to improve faceless assessments, the parliamentary standing committee on finance said in a report submitted to the lower house on Wednesday.

- Gireesh Chandra Prasad

The panel also told authorities to review "fictitious tax demands", which inflate the actual tax arrears that the income tax department could realize.

The Committee led by the Bhartiya Janata Party's Bhartruhari Mahtab expressed concern over the high figures of purported tax arrears and said there is a pressing need to review the tax assessment system to make it more efficient in collection of taxes, keeping in view the ground realities.