New Delhi, May 21 (KNN)  Close on the heels of Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s warning to tax defaulters the government has set up a compliance management cell for tracking returns filing.

“A compliance management cell has been set up to ensure follow-up action and track return filing and tax payment of the target segment,” said an official statement.

The government has identified a target segment of 12,19,832 non-filers linked to more than 4.7 crore information records.  Rule based algorithms were used to identify high priority cases for follow-up and monitoring.

To involve the targeted tax payers in a better way, letters have been sent in three batches to 1,05,000 high priority cases seeking to know whether the person had filed his Income Tax return or not.  The letter contains the summary of the information of financial transaction(s) along with a customized response sheet.

Further, another 70,000 letters are being sent in two batches to other high priority cases during this month, of these, the first batch of 35,000 letters have been dispatched on May 20, 2013.

The government initiative seems to be bearing results as a 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 have been paid as self-assessment tax and advance tax by the target segment during the last three months.

Meanwhile, the government has urged all tax payers to disclose their true income and pay appropriate taxes within the current financial year.  (KNN)