New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a target for the taxmen to double the taxpayer base to 10 crore and warned “the long arm of the law” will catch up with those evading taxes. At the same time, he asked tax officers to be “soft and sober” in their approach and not treat everyone as tax evaders.
Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day annual conference of tax administrators, Prime Minister said the foundation of administration should be on five pillars of Revenue, Accountability, Probity, Information and Digitisation (RAPID).
Stating that people should not fear tax administrators, Prime Minister said Indians inherently are honest and asked the taxmen to build a “bridge of trust” so as to achieve tax collection targets without coercion.
At the conference titled ‘Rajasva Gyan Sangam’ (Knowledge Conference on Revenue), Modi asked the officials to “move towards digitisation” to make tax administration efficient and work towards bridging the “trust deficit”. Asking taxmen to set sights higher, Modi said we should legitimately aspire to have 10 crore taxpayers within our tax bases as against 5.43 crore tax payers currently.
