Flavour of department has changed from enforcement to taxpayer centric: CBDT chairman

Department becoming more taxpayer centric

The central board of direct taxes has become more focused on the taxpayer rather than enforcement, said Ravi Agrawal, CBDT chairman, at the Confederation of Indian Industry session on July 26.

“The flavour of the department has changed from being an enforcement department to a taxpayer-centric department," Agrawal noted, highlighting that the Union Budget was a step forward.

Agrawal also pointed to an increasing focus on digitalisation and resolution.

“Multiple litigations were not leading us anywhere, the procedures have been standardised. We have come up with Vivad se vishwas scheme, keeping in view that last VSVS was successful,” the CBDT chairman said at the CII session.

The chairman also noted that the new capital gains tax regime is expected to benefit in most cases.

Sanjay Kumar Agrawal, the CBIC chairman, extolled the benefits of a phased manufacturing programme for mobile phones.

“Phased manufacturing programme has borne fruit and we have a robust manufacturing of mobile phones. Time has come to reduce rate of duty to 20 percent to 15 percent, because they cannot remain high forever,” he said.

He also noted that the government was confident of achieving its GST target, as revenue collections picked up in the last quarter.

“There is a significant emphasis on rate rationalisation, a comprehensive review of rate structure will be done over the next six months,” he pointed out.