The Finance Minister of India has planned up to double the taxpayer base by 2010-11. To make this plan successful, a massive IT networking strategy that promises to increase the number of the tax payers in the country is going to be introduced.
India has only 4.26 crore taxpayers with a population of more than a hundred crore.Using the power of IT, the taxman will be able to instantly track every transaction. The idea is simple: the department wants to create a single national database. Today, all the data that a taxpayer files with the department lies with each of the 510 offices across the country. If an assessee moves to a new city, accessing his records becomes a big hassle for the assessing officer. Unless he repeatedly follows up with the original office, the information is seldom made available. Currently, the 510 offices are connected to one of the 36 regional computer centres. But the master plan is to directly connect them to the National Data Centre in Delhi. Once this system is networked by June this year, taxpayers will be able to file returns from any office. And much of it is thanks to the new IT system that's likely to be entirely in place by 2008. The change will begin at the grassroots. The chances are you'd probably had a hard time even locating the I-T office where your return would be accepted. By 2008, once the I-T department's mammoth drive to seamlessly connect all its 510 offices across the country is over, you will be able to file your income-tax returns anywhere in India, instead of being restricted to a specific jurisdiction within a city.
