In a periodic review meeting with CBDT here Tuesday, Sitharaman also discussed measures to widen the taxpayer base and disposal of applications for condonation of delay and grant of exemptions under certain sections of the Income Tax Act.
In a presentation made before the finance minister, the Board said that personal income tax as a percentage of GDP had gone up to 2.94% in 2021-22 from 2.11% in 2014-15, the finance ministry said.
Introduction of new data sources in Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) like dividend and interest; securities; mutual funds and information from GSTN in recent years has led to 1,118% rise in reported information. This has resulted in addition of information on about 3 crore persons, a finance ministry statement said. Also, introduction of new tax deducted at source (TDS) codes, which have almost doubled from 36 to 65 in last eight years, led to increase in total reported transaction in FY22 to 144 crore against 70 crore in FY16. The number of unique deductees went up to 9.2 crore in FY22, from 4.8 crore in FY16.
During the meeting, which was attended by revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra and CBDT chairman Nitin Gupta, FM exhorted CBDT to strengthen its efforts to increase tax payers’ awareness regarding the provisions of the direct tax laws and compliance, the ministry said.