CAG reveals huge tax evasion in Mizoram

Aizawl, Apr 16 (UNI) The Comptroller and Auditor General has unearthed heavy revenue losses incurred by the Mizoram exchequer through tax evasions in its latest report.

During the years between 2001 and 2006, in which the Taxation Department came under scrutiny by the auditors, it was found that Rs 154.92 lakh had been lost through tax evasions alone.

Apart from this, there were also heavy losses of revenue through non-registration of dealers, non-levy of penalties, mistake in computations and irregular exemption of taxes.

The CAG report contained 15 paragraphs, devoted solely to loss of revenue by the state's Taxation Department, where some were caused by dealers who concealed their turnovers while others were mistakes made by officials.

The report also pointed out that there had been many instances where senior officials had failed to enforce accountability and protect government interest by not following up on whether the concerned officials had taken action regarding audit inspection reports.

The report said the inspection reports issued upto December 2005, involving the offices under sales tax, state excise, land revenue, motor vehicle tax and Forest department, disclosed that 225 objections made by the auditors relating to 79 inspections reports involving an amount of Rs 32.78 crore had not been resolved for settlement till June of last year. Of this, Rs 2.87 crore had not been settled for three years.

Putting the blame squarely on senior officials for not looking into whether or not inspection reports are treated seriously, the CAG report said a total of 19 paragraphs relating to 11 inspection reports, involving a monetary value of Rs 3.17 crore issued upto June 2006, which required first replies had not been attended to by the concerned departments and officials.

The report also stated that the committments made by the Finance Minister in his budget speech for the year 2005-06 has remained unfulfilled.

The committments that remained unfulfilled, according to the report, are computerisation with networking of the tax administration to ensure a more effective and transparent administration and the introduction of entry tax, luxury tax on hotels and lodging houses and other luxury items to mobilise additional revenue of Rs five crore a year.

The Environment and Forests department incurred a loss of Rs 3.33 crores from such lapses as non-realisation of royalties, non-levy of penalties, illicit felling and removal of timber from reserved areas.

Transport and Land Revenue departments also are criticism for having incurred heavy losses in revenue are the Transport and Land Revenue departments.

The Transport department incurred a loss of Rs 8.40 lakh through short realisation of composite fee for tourist vehicle permits, Rs 11.17 lakh through non-levy of fines for excess loads in transport vehicles and Rs 2.99 crore for failing to arrange apparatus for testing smoke emissions in vehicles which led to vehicles plying without pollution under control certificates.

In the case of the Land Revenue department, there was a loss of Rs 3.34 lakh because of failure to impose penalties when realising arrear land revenues.

UNI