Amount of Tax locked up to come down, says FM Piyush Goyal

New Delhi: Union finance minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said that the government’s decision to raise the threshold monetary limits to file appeals by tax department in courts will have an impact of Rs 5,600 crore.  

He said that as of March, 2017, tax disputes worth Rs 7.6 lakh crore were stuck in various stages of litigation in tribunals, High Courts and the Supreme Court. “In case of CBDT, the withdrawal of 41 per cent of the cases, will have a revenue impact of Rs 4,800 crore in absolute terms, while in case of CBIC, withdrawal of 18 per cent of cases will have a revenue impact of Rs 800 crore,” he said.

Mr Goyal said the move to hike the threshold limit is a step towards ease of doing business. “Small and mid-sized taxpayers will benefit with the increase in threshold limit for filing appeals as they can now focus on doing business rather than litigating in various fora. The government trusts the honest tax payers,” Mr Goyal said.

Earlier, the taxmen used to challenge rulings gone against them in appellate tribunals if the dispute over tax was over Rs 10 lakh. The Centre has now raised this limit to Rs 20 lakh. This means that departments will file appeal in I-T Appellate Tribunal or CESTAT only if the tax amount involved is Rs 20 lakh or more.  

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