New Delhi, December 20: Days after directing the senior officers to boost both direct and indirect tax collections and meet the targets, the Revenue Department issued a new set of directions for the Income Tax officials and asked them to achieve direct tax collection target of Rs 13.5 lakh crores. The new direction was issued despite recently announced corporate tax relief of Rs 1.45 lakh crores by Narendra Modi-led Union government.

In respect of this new development, Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey chaired the meeting on Friday with senior direct and indirect tax officials and had asked them to to exchange information. The aim of the meeting called by the Revenue Department was to strategise a plan on increasing the tax collection target. Finance Ministry Issues Guidelines For Revenue Dept Officers, Asks Them to Boost Monthly GST Collection to Rs 1.1 Lakh Crore.

Informing more about the minutes of the meeting, a senior officer said, as quoted by LiveMint, "GST information would be made available to income tax departments to identify the cases of suppression of personal income or tax evasion by showing lower GST turnover or taking refund from GST fraudulently. The officials were told to get into a campaign mode to recover past arrears."

It is to be known that the recent decision by the Revenue depart arrived amid an economic slowdown which is putting pressure on revenue collections. Also, in the recent past too, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had made several announcements to revive the slowing economy. Nirmala Sitharaman Heads 38th GST Council Meet, Extends GSTR Return Filing Deadline Till January 31; Here Are All Details.

Earlier on Monday, Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey held a video conference meeting with all senior officers and issued strict guidelines to boost both direct and indirect tax collections and meet the targets. In the meeting, the government had set the monthly goods and services tax (GST) collections for the next four months to Rs 1.1 lakh crore. Adding more, the official had said that tax officials have been asked to achieve a target of Rs 1.25 lakh crore for at least one out of these four months.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 20, 2019 10:52 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).