Demonetisation has been very good for increasing the tax base of the country.

https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/income-tax-number-of-people-filing-e-returns-up-50-says-cbdt/1403697/

In the first seven months (April-October) of this fiscal, over 50% more income tax e-returns have been filed compared with the same period a year ago, Sushil Chandra, chairman of central board of direct taxes (CBDT) said and added that the growth was attributable to the effect of demonetisation.

“Demonetisation has been very good for increasing the tax base of the country.

This year, we have already got around 6.08 crore income tax returns, which is 50% higher than last year by this particular date,” Chandra said while speaking on the sidelines of a CII event. He added that the number corporate tax payers have gone up to 8 lakh from 7 lakh last year as a result of demonetisation.

Even after the deadline for filing income tax returns ended on August 31, the growth in taxpayers filing e-returns continued to grow robustly, and for April-October, a 58% growth was witnessed over the year-ago period, data from the CBDT showed. The government has estimated that the e-filings would touch 7.6 crore for the current fiscal year compared with 6.9 crore in the last financial year. At the end of FY 14, only 3.8 e-returns had been filed.

Chandra further added that the revenue department will achieve direct tax collection target, which is Rs 11.5 lakh crore, for the current financial year. “Our gross direct tax collection growth rate is 16.5% and net direct tax growth rate is 14.5%, which itself shows that demonetisation really helped in widening and deepening of tax base. As on date, total direct tax mop up stood at 48% of the budget estimate, he said.

Additionally, CBDT, which is the apex policy making body for direct taxes, will in one year start giving e-PAN within four hours, Chandra said. “We are putting a new system in place. After a year or so, we will be giving PAN in 4 hours, you will have to give Aadhaar identity and you will get e-PAN in 4 hours,” Chandra added.

He said that the department had sent two crore SMS to people who had not filed returns or those whose income did not match with their filings. Referring to department’s efforts of reducing human interface of taxmen with taxpayers, Chandra said that so far this year more than 70,000 cases have been done online without calling assessees to tax offices.

Further, the CBDT chief noted that so far the department has given 2.27 crore refunds, which is 50% higher than last year.