Indore, Jan 8 (PTI) The Income Tax Department is looking at adopting different measures, including adding new taxpayers, to increase the tax collection in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh regions.

Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Ajay Kumar Chouhan told this to reporters after a review meeting here on Wednesday.

"We are adopting different measures to increase income tax collection by adding new taxpayers. We are also taking the help of the data from Central Goods and Service Tax (CGST) and the State Goods and Services Tax (SGST)," he said.

"We are especially eyeing those business institutions which are not filing GST returns in time despite being in the tax net. We will include all such institutions in the main stream of income tax payment," Chouhan added.

Replying to a question, the official claimed that the impact of economic slowdown on income tax recovery in both the states is not visible at present.

The number of income tax returns has increased by 17 per cent to 31.76 lakh in MP and Chhattisgarh region during the third quarter (April-December) of the current financial year.

In the corresponding period during FY 2018-19, 27.19 lakh income tax returns were filed in this region.

Chouhan informed that in the current FY about 3.29 lakh new income tax payers have been added in MP and Chhattisgarh region from April to December.

"We want to increase the number of new income tax payers in the two states to 7.5 lakh by the end of the current financial year," he said.

He informed that the department has set the target to collect tax of Rs 27,844 crore from this region in current fiscal.

Of this, income tax of Rs 14,020 crore has been already collected from April to December.

Chouhan also said that since the enactment of the Benami Transactions (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2016, more than 670 properties have been temporarily attached in MP and Chhattisgarh region.

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