Media-reports about number of stop-filers of Income-Tax returns jumping 10-fold to 88.04 lakhs in the fiscal-year 2016-17 of demonetisation as compared to 8.56 lakhs in the previous year 2015-16 highest in last tow decades is just contrast to success-claim for of demonetisation citing addition of 1.06 crores new tax-payers in the year 2016-17 which was 25-percent higher as compared to the previous year 2015-16. It is also noteworthy that target of direct-tax collection for recently closed fiscal-year 2018-19 could not be collected despite best of last-days efforts of Central Board of Direct Taxes CBDT.
It creates doubts about downfall in trade-activities and fall in number of jobs which is certainly a cause of worry for fiscal-system. Another notable feature is 19.14 percent rise in currency-circulation post-demonetisation indicating failure of efforts towards a cashless-economy for which demonetisation was aimed. GST-system was also introduced after demonetisation which has already been modified numerous times indicating that proper planning was not done before implementing such a fine taxation-system.
It is time to review and total overhaul of complete taxation-system for a simplified and practical tax-regime for both direct and indirect taxes which may make tax-compliance voluntary at all levels and people may find it advantageous to switch over to banking-transactions from cash-deals especially in big deals after studying fiscal-system of countries with cashless-economy.
MADHU AGRAWAL