By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, APRIL 13, 2013: THE Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, yesterday said that role of the Central Direct Tax Advisory Committee (CDTAC) is to develop and encourage mutual cooperation between the tax-payers and the Income Tax Department and to remove administrative and procedural difficulties of a general nature. He emphasized on computerization and enhanced use of technology to provide better tax-payer service and in reducing the physical interface between the tax-payers and the department.

The Finance Minister was addressing the First Meeting of the Reconstituted Central Direct Taxes Advisory Committee here yesterday. Mr Namo Narain Meena, Minister of State for Finance and Dr. Parthasarthy Shome, Advisor to the Finance Minister, Mr Sumit Bose, Revenue Secretary, Dr. Poonam Kishore Saxena, Chairperson CBDT, Members of CBDT and other senior officers of the Ministry and CBDT also attended the meeting. The CDTAC is comprised of nominated members that includes Members of Parliament, members from the field of trade, commerce, industries and accounts among others.

Earlier in her welcome address, Dr. Poonam Kishore Saxena, Chairperson CBDT emphasized on the endeavour of the Government to provide quality tax-payer services and enhanced service delivery. In this regard, she referred to initiatives of setting up of the Central Processing Center for TDS at Vaishali, Ghaziabad; the setting up of “Income-tax Business Application Project” to revamp the computerization of the department and to introduce state-of-the-art technology and completely computerize all business as well as HRD processes of the department. She also referred to the formation of the Standing Committee in the CBDT known as “Central Technical Committee on Departmental Views” to consider various aspects and divergent views in order to formulate the departmental views which may be issued by way of Circulars.

Various issues relating to computerization, e-governance initiatives, litigation, scrutiny assessment, augmentation of revenue through faster dispute resolution, functioning of dispute resolution panel, limit on cash transactions, time period of retention of books of accounts, procedure for picking up cases for scrutiny, shortage of officers in the department, notification of tax accounting standards, need for on-line grievance resolution mechanism, speedier disposal of appeals, need for better appreciation of international tax and transfer pricing issues, recovery matters, need for increase in manpower in ITATs, need for quicker notification of income tax return forms and quicker refunds were discussed.

At the conclusion, the Finance Minister assured all those present that valuable suggestions of the Members of the CDTAC had been noted and would be examined. He hoped that twin objectives of improving tax-payer services and collecting more revenue would be successfully achieved.