JAMMU: On day two of the Tax Awareness Initiative – KAR-TAVYA, Dr. Rashmi Singh, Commissioner State Taxes, J&K today presided over the first of its kind interactive session of officers of the State Taxes Department with the other States for exchange of good practices here at Convention Centre.
The interactive session was attended virtually by Commissioner State Taxes Maharashtra, Rajeev Kumar Mittal; Principal Commissioner State Taxes Tamil Nadu, Dheeraj Kumar; Commissioner State Taxes Karnataka, C.Shikha and Ravneet Khurana, senior IRS officer from Punjab and Additional Commissioner, State Taxes Gujarat Milind along with their senior officers.
The officers shared their initiatives in augmentation of revenue and deliberated on how officers of J&K can incorporate some of their initiatives in their working to increase their tax revenue collection.
150 officers of Jammu & Kashmir including Additional Commissioner, Tax Planning, Policy & Advance Ruling, Ankita Kar, Additional Commissioner, Administration & Enforcement, Namrita Dogra from Jammu and Shakeel Maqbool from Kashmir who made active contribution in the interactive session.
An equal number joined virtually from all the districts across J&K. The session was moderated by Ankita Kar.
Underlying the need to pay the taxes as the Kartavya of every citizen, Commissioner State Taxes, J&K said that Department of State Taxes has organized today’s session for learning from the best practices of other States and UTs across the country and adopting them in J&K.
“There is a need to go beyond the status quo and learning from all and learning with all,” she said and added that the main objective of the tax awareness initiative “KAR-TAVYA” is to infuse the message among all the taxpayers that it is the tax revenue which leads to the development of the nation.
She said that having Tamil Nadu, Gujarat,Punjab, Karnataka and J&K in one frame, carried forward the vision and guidance of Prime Minister of working together as ‘One’ to achieve the economic goals of the country under aegis of “Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat”.
Speaking on the occasion, Commissioner State Taxes Maharashtra appreciated the initiative taken by Jammu & Kashmir State Taxes Department and hoped that more such programmes of sharing best practices will be held with greater participation from other States in future as well.
In order to streamline information sharing with the neighboring State of Punjab, it was decided that nodal officers will be nominated in both the regions for regular information flow.
During the deliberations with the States, emphasis was laid on the role of artificial intelligence and data analytic tools for targeted intervention and improvement of the processes for detection of tax evasion and tax collection, methods to find potential leaks in revenue collection and detection of errors and anomalies. Details of various cases from all the States based on empirical data were shared amongst the officers to understand the use of data analytic tools to help boost GST collection. Case studies of tax evasion comprising various modes like claim of ineligible ITC and investigation of refund fraud were also discussed and deliberated upon.
Commissioner State Taxes, J&K also complimented the senior officers of the department for being open to adopt new ways of revenue augmentation while keeping in mind interests of citizens and other stakeholders.