Chidambaram knocks on tax-payers door to know true income

New Delhi, May 21: The government is monitoring your tax compliance and has identified over 12 lakh tax payers, who have not filed their returns.

The finance ministry headed by P Chidambaram, in a soft crackdown, is sending letters to 70,000 "high priority" tax-payers this month asking them to disclose their true income and pay taxes in the current financial year.

Of these, the first batch of 35,000 letters has been dispatched on May 20, 2013.

The tax department has also identified 12.19 lakh persons who have not filed tax returns and the department has identified high-profile cases for follow-up and monitoring.

Last year, the department had sent 1.05 lakh letters to assessees seeking to know whether the person had filed his IT return or not. The letter contained the summary of the information of financial transaction(s) along with a customised response sheet.

The Ministry said preliminary assessment of the results show that a large number of taxpayers have filed return of income and paid self assessment tax after initiation of this exercise.

"Taxes of more than Rs 600 crore has been paid as self assessment tax and advance tax by the target segment in last three months," the Ministry added.

"Government once again urges all tax payers to disclose their true income and pay appropriate taxes within the current financial year, the statement added.

The government plans to collect over Rs 6.68 lakh crore from direct taxes in the current fiscal, up from Rs 5.65 lakh crore in the previous fiscal.