Interacting with reporters here, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Atulesh Jindal said the Income Tax department had recently introduced the facility for corporates allowing them to apply for TAN using digital signatures, while individuals can now get a new PAN through Aadhaar-based e-signature facility which will reduce the effective time in allotment of the unique I-T department issued number by half.
“CBDT has agreed to seamless exchange of data with Ministry of Corporate Affairs to ensure that upon incorporation of a company by MCA the PAN and TAN number are allotted within a day. The process of getting a PAN or TAN has been fast-tracked for all category of taxpayers,” he said.
Jindal said the new measures are specifically aimed to ensure “ease of doing business in the country” and help taxpayers in getting PAN quickly.
“The PAN number has been made the unique business identifier for all different categories of businesses not only for assessees of the Income Tax department but also for other organisations.
“We have taken certain steps for easing the allotment of the PAN number and the process has been made totally digitized. Besides this, the corporate assessees who are filing applications on e-biz platform and the corporate who is coming to us for allotment of PAN, now such a corporate can file such an application online using the digital signature.
No physical document is required to be attached along with the application,” he said.
The CBDT boss said for normal taxpayers and those in the non-corporate category, these processes have also been digitised.
“They (taxpayers) can also file the application without any annexure using digital signature. Besides that, we have also introduced another facility, a convenient facility for those who do not have digital signature. They can file using Aadhaar-based e-signature facility,” Jindal said while talking about processes that will be available to individuals seeking a PAN.
As many as 20 central government services including industrial licence and employer registration have been integrated with the e-Biz platform, in a move aimed at improving ease of doing business.
The e-biz project has started with the objective of providing government services through a single-window portal.
About a crore Aadhaar numbers have been linked with the I-T department issued Permanent Account Number (PAN) on the e-Biz portal till now.
A senior I-T official said the e-signature needed for obtaining PAN using Aadhaar can be obtained in a one-time fashion by a taxpayer and it will cost around Rs 5-7.
“These measures will simplify things. In this e-biz portal we have prioritised everything. The time that is being cut is with regard to the submission of the physical documents for obtaining PAN or TAN by any category of taxpayer, whether corporate or individual,” the official said.
He said the department, over the last few years, has weeded out over 11 lakh duplicate PANs and the possibility of issuing two PANs to one person is remote now.
Talking about direct tax collections, which registered a growth of 24.79 per cent to Rs 1.24 lakh crore during April- June period mainly on account of early advance tax mop-up, Jindal acknowledged that these numbers are “not the actual indicator” of revenue collections.
He said Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) collections is showing a growth of more than 16-17 per cent at present.
“Only concern for us today is the corporate sector collection. That is not up to the mark. Personal income tax has shown a very good growth,” he said.
Jindal said the tax department is “very very serious” about increasing the tax base for which it is using non-intrusive methods and technology.
He said with the help of a special electronic project called Non-filers Management System (NMS) to identify non-filers or stop-filers, the I-T department has identified over a crore taxpayers and collected Rs 6,000 crore in taxes last year.
“We get information from various sources and under different heads under the NMS and we are making this system more robust,” the CBDT chief added