People's Democracy

Release Top Tax Defaulters’ List: CITU

THROUGH a statement issued from New Delhi on June 13, the secretariat of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has denounced the farcical exercise by the government to form a committee in the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to examine the extent of and recoverability of unpaid tax arrears, instead of making a concrete action plan to recover the huge accumulated unpaid tax arrears which happens to be the one of the main sources of black money generation. It is to be noted that along with other central trade union organisations, the CITU has consistently been demanding, during the pre-budget discussions with the finance minister and otherwise, recovery of tax arrears as a part of resource mobilisation.

The CITU statement recalled that before the last budget the central trade union organisations had specifically pointed out in their memorandum that more than Rs 2 lakh crore (Rs 2.48 lakh crore, to be precise) were recoverable on account of corporate tax and income tax as on March 31, 2010, and had sought expeditious recovery of this amount. But during the last couple of years there has been a rapid rise in tax arrears, pertaining to both direct and indirect taxes, in geometric progression and from Rs 1.60 lakh crore in March 2008 it has gone up to Rs 2.93 lakh crore now. This, the CITU said, is an amount which is sufficient to cover the entire subsidy on petroleum products and fertilisers.

The CITU has therefore demanded that, instead of fixing the targets for reduction in subsidies, the government must set a target for recovery of at least 30 per cent of the tax arrears in the year 2011-12. The CITU has strongly urged the government to immediately release the list of 100 top direct tax defaulters of the country in the income tax and corporate tax categories, along with the amount recoverable from each of them.