Search engines to unearth tax evaders in India

Federal Minister for Finance P Chidambaram said the Government will soon deploy innovative search engines to track down tax evaders in the country.

“A small number of tax evaders believe they are clever. But that is no longer true. We will have more information that you think we actually have”, said Chidambaram after inaugurating the country’s first Large Tax-payer Unit (LTU) in Bangalore.

The process of tracing tax evaders had been hampered by limited access to information. “But, all that will change soon as a group of professionals was working on several innovative search engines that would help in collecting information on tax evaders”, he said.

Soon after the search engines and developed and deployed, the Government will be better equipped to go after the defaulters, he said.

The Government would also open similar LTUs in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata to serve as a self-contained tax administration office with a single window facility for all matters relating to Income Tax, Corporation Tax, Service Tax, Central Excise etc. Tax-payers, paying taxes amounting to more than Rs 50 million can opt for paying their taxes through these LTUs.

A total of 83 large tax-payers in Bangalore including multinational giants like Toyota Kirloskar Motor, ABB Ltd, Volvo etc are eligible to join the LTU in Bangalore. There are more than 200 such large tax-payers in Delhi, 282 in Mumbai, 132 in Chennai and 131 in Kolkata. “There are a total of 830 entities in India, which were eligible to join LTUs”, he said.

The cost of tax collection was the lowest in India at 0.67 per cent and the figure is expected to drop to 0.64 per cent, Chidambaram added.