New Delhi, Mar 28 (KNN) With four days remaining before the current financial year ends, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has sent a letter to senior income-tax officials, warning them of an “alarming situation”.

“Progress based on the online tax accounting system (to calculate dues with interest) has been reviewed and only 85.1% has been collected as of March 23,” goes the letter to principal Chief Commissioners of income tax.

The CBDT said, “A head-wise analysis of regulator assessment tax (recovery from arrears and current demand) indicated a worsening trend of negative growth in regular collection at minus 6.9%, as against a minus 5.2% in mid-March.”

“The board has discussed strategies through various communications with you (I-T officials) and it was expected that by this time, your strategies would have succeeded, resulting into improved collections. However the figures of collection give a different account,” CBDT said

Direct tax collection was Rs 10.29 trillion, which is 12.5% up compared to the same period a year ago. The revised Budget target for 2018-19 is Rs 12 trillion.

It has asked for urgent action, especially with respect to recovery of arrears and current demand, to achieve the collection target.

The increase of Rs 50,000 crore in the interim Budget 2019-20 has made the task of achieving the revised target difficult.

However, the department has been consistently putting efforts to maximise revenues and make up for the shortfall.

The department was pinning hope on advance tax collection in the fourth quarter, ending March 15. (KNN/JM)