The common focus would be to improve taxpayer services and the taxpayer experience: Revenue Secretary

While declining to get into the specifics of any particular tax proposal, he said the focus is to ensure a hasslefree experience to taxpayers. In a post Budget interview to BT, he also spoke about trends in tax collections and the use of technology. Edited excerpts:

The Budget has been more optimistic on the projections for the direct tax collections. Do you also think that the new normal for goods and services tax (GST) collections on a monthly basis may not be Rs 1.7 lakh crore?

GST is to a great extent a reflection of how the economy is doing. We are confident that the economy continues to do well and grows at a real growth rate of 6.5% to 7% per year next year and also going forward and so, the GST collections should continue to grow. Collections from the indirect tax were about Rs 90,000 crore per month when it was introduced in 2017-18 and rose to Rs 1.5 lakh crore per month on an average last year and further to Rs 1.67 lakh crore in the first 10 months of this year.

This is a huge jump of almost two times and we are hopeful that with the growth of our GDP, with the growth in the income levels of our people, spending will continue to increase, capital expenditure will continue to increase and we will continue to see good growth in GST collections. The good growth in personal income tax is because of extensive use of technology effectively.

We are doing this even in GST where the growth is almost 12% vis a vis last year and we are projecting growth rate of 11.6% for next fiscal. So, if there is higher growth in personal income tax, it is because of use of technology, it is because of simplification and rationalisation of the tax regime and the use of third party information. We have also made it easier and simpler for people to file returns by making them available information in Form 26AS and also giving them opportunity to file updated returns.