Excise evasion will be plugged; Budget target to be met: FM

New Delhi, July 24 (UNI) Giving an assurance that all out efforts will be made to plug excise evasion, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today exuded confidence that the Budget target for Indirect taxes of Rs 2,78,013 crore for 2007-08 will be met.

''Revenues have been buoyant,'' Mr Chidambaram told newspersons here briefing on the outcome of the Annual meeting of Chief Commissioners and Director Generals of Excise and Customs.

Mr Chidambaram said revenue from customs was Rs 23,570 crore in the first quarter of 2007-08 as compared to the figure of Rs 19,677 crore in the previous year, which is an increase of 20 per cent.

Excise revenue was Rs 25,161 crore in the first quarter of this year as compared to Rs 19,677 crore figure of last year, which is an increase of 6.8 per cent.

''Growth in excise revenue has been sluggish,'' Mr Chidambaram remarked.

Service tax collection in the first quarter of this year is of the order of Rs 7,357 crore as compared to the figure of Rs 5,574 crore, which is an increase of 31.6 per cent.

''Given the fact that the economy has been growing close to nine per cent, I am confident that the Budget targets will be met,'' Mr Chidambaram said.

The Finance Minister parried questions as to which were the sectors where there was high excise evasion, saying that these are well known. ''They are the same as earlier. There are no new sectors,'' he quipped.

Outlining the measures that the government will take to check excise evasion, Mr Chidambaram said while masking the names, greater publicity will be given to those found faulting under the deterrant scheme. This will prevent others in the same sectors and areas from excise evasion.

Making a case for strenthening excise audit, Mr Chidambaram said 12 assessees have been booked so far under the deterrant scheme.

Another step in this regard enabling a larger number of assessees to pay their taxes through the e-filling.

He said 50 lakh assessees have paid excise and service tax through e-filling. Mr Chidambaram said as many as 89 per cent of the assessees of excise and service tax were now taking recourse to e-filling.

Mr Chidambaram said there was a correlation between excise duty payments and VAT collections and thus there was need to have greater liasoning with State governments in this regard.

''The two mirror each other.'' A start has been made in this regard in the case of Andhra Pradesh, but there was need for the Union government to have closer monitoring with data from talukas, districts and cities.

The Finance Minister said for the first time CENVAT credit has exceeded PLA, but nothing concrete can be established in this regard.

Mr Chidambaram said custom duty collections were lower in growth rate than last year because custom duties were lowered in the Budget.

Asked how the Central Board and Excise and Colections will be restructured to introduce Goods and Sevices Tax (GST) by 2010, Mr Chidambaram said while customs will remain with CBEC, service and VAT will be collected both by the Centre and States. Thereafter, how the two taxes will be appropriated will be decided.

Asked why was it that growth in excise collections was sluggish in the first quarter, Mr Chidambaram said small and medium industries do not normally pay these taxes in the first quarter. It is only in subsequent periods that they pay excise duty.

UNI