By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, OCT 05, 2015: MARKING a paradigm shift in their approach towards sustained interaction with the media at large, All the Secretaries from the Ministry of Finance arrived at the National Media Centre today and held a detailed open house session on virtually all the issues confronting the economy. On the much-talked about issue of black money, the Revenue Secretary, Dr Hashmukh Adhia, said that since the Government had no target from the Compliance Window, it would be wrong to say that whether it is miniscule or huge collections. However, he also disclosed that major assessments have been completed in the HSBC cases of black money and the Income Tax Department has raised the demand of Rs 4500 Crore.

While talking about how well-armed is the Government with sensitive information about black money hoarders, the Revenue Secretary said that India has begun to receive critical banking information from the USA Internal Revenue Service under FATCA. With respect to seeking information under the DTAAs, as compared to 800 requests made last fiscal, the CBDT has sought information in 1600 cases in the current fiscal.

Talking about the tax collections, Dr Adhia said that he is expecting a minor shortfall of 5% in the total target of Rs 14.5 lakh crore. He also said that the Government is trying hard to sort out legacy cases of tax demands raised retrospectively through mutually beneficial solutions. And the Govt's broad approach to taxation is as follows:

++ Non-adversarial (less litigations)

++ Lower tax burden and fewer exemptions

++ Strengthening mechanisms for Advance Pricing Agreements, Authority for Advance Rulings and Settlement Commission

++ Minimum direct interface of assesses with tax administration by using more and more, the facilities of e-filing, e-processing, e-refunds etc.

++ Simplification of laws, rules and notifications.

The Economic Affairs Secretary, Mr Shaktikanta Das, said that the Government is expecting to receive the report on the new Bankruptcy Law by the month-end. As regards the Gold Monetisation Scheme and the Sovereign Bond he said that they would be formally launched in the month of November.