Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has directed Commercial Tax Department officers to take strict action against cases of tax evasion, tax leakage, and tax pilferage in Karnataka.
The Chief Minister chaired a review meeting of the department and appreciated the 19.2% growth rate in the collection of tax by the department, which is the highest in the country. He said that officers should not be satisfied by this and must explore opportunities to detect tax evasion cases by intensive enforcement to exceed the tax collection target.
Country’s average
The country’s average tax collection growth rate is only 15%. The share of the State in the total tax collection of the country is 9.4%. Officials explained to the Chief Minister that the State’s tax collection share was more that in the previous year.
The Chief Minister instructed the officials to outdo the given growth target of 24%. The progress would be reviewed again after two months. He said that by the next meeting, steps should be taken to make the situation more optimistic than now. Officials of the Finance and Commercial Tax departments were present.