Sluggish TDS collections upset CBDT honchos
By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, SEPT 16, 2017: TDS is a major source of direct tax kitty. But, going by the data collected upto August-end, it has turned out to be a major source of worry for the CBDT honchos. It has registered a decline of 7% at All India level and there are many cities where it is negative so far. Chennai and Kochi are two regions under the charge of Member (IT) which appear to be giving wrinkles on his forehead. Mumbai or west zone has remained no growth zone which has pulled down the overall growth rate. The collection so far is about 1.65 lakh crore.
In view of the poor collection figures, the CBDT has asked the TDS wards to step up Surveys, particularly in those cases where there is a decline of 10% as compared to the previous year. The Board communication states that a few indicative steps in this regard are conducting more TDS surveys to check large scale non-deduction or under deduction of taxes at source as well as non-deposit of taxes already deducted. In some cases, where the TDS payment by the deductors in the current year is more than 10% lower than the payments in the corresponding period of last year may be examined on priority for possible spot verification or survey based on the compliance background of the deductors. An equally useful step would be monitoring compliance of newly introduced provisions under Finance Act 2017 such as sections 1941B and 1941C.
The Board states that the list of TDS defaulters is available with CPC-TDS. Some defaulters may be physically verified for immediate collection of TDS which has been deducted but not deposited to Government account so far, Criminal complaints need to be expeditiously filed before Courts. The compounding petitions for offences u/s 276B and 276BB constitute Category "A" offences and so do not need meeting of Regional Compounding Committee (RCC), Such compounding petitions must be expeditiously disposed of by the CCIT.
The Board has also noted that the tax deducted by the State Government DDOs is not transferred to the account of the Central Government within the prescribed time and there are inordinate delays in this regard. The CCIT (TDS)/ C1T (TDS) should ensure that there is proper deduction and timely deposit of tax at source by the Central Government offices and the State Government offices also.
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