Transparent Taxation – Honouring the Honest
- August 14, 2020
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Subject: Economy
Context:
Prime Minister has launched “Transparent Taxation – Honoring the Honest” platform through video conferencing which will honor the honest taxpayers.
Concept:
- The new platform will be having faceless assessments, faceless appeal and taxpayer charter.
- The faceless assessment and taxpayer charter came to effect immediately, while the faceless appeal is going to be applicable from September 25.
- It is the latest in a series of measures finance ministry has taken to eventually get rid income tax department off its legacy from intrusive tax collector to tax facilitator.
- The focus is on making the tax system people-centric and public friendly, banking the unbanked, securing the unsecured, funding the unfunded and honoring the honest.
- In a country of 130 crore people only 1.5 crore citizens were paying taxes.
- Taxpayers’ charter is a big step in the development journey of the nation. It is a step towards bringing together rights and duties of the taxpayer and fixing the government’s responsibilities towards the taxpayer
Reforms already taken
- To unfold more transparency in official communication, Document Identification Number (DIN) was introduced some time back to ensure that every communication of the department would carry a computer generated unique document identification number.
- Last year, the corporate tax rates were reduced from 30 percent to 22 percent and for new manufacturing units the rate was reduced to 15 percent. Dividend distribution tax was also abolished to reduce the unwanted burden
- With a view to provide for resolution of pending tax disputes the department also brought out the Direct Tax Vivad se Vishwas Act, 2020 under which declarations for settling disputes are being filed.
- Digital transactions and electronic modes of payment too have been encouraged to cutdown red tapism.
Tax base
- The tax base is the total amount of assets or revenue that a government can charge tax on.
- For example, the assessed value is the tax base for property taxes and taxable income is the tax base for income tax.
- It can also be defined as the total of taxable income, taxable assets, and the assessed value of property within the government tax jurisdiction.