At a time when the government is claiming a manifold increase in the number of taxpayers following the introduction of Goods and Service Tax (GST), there are a few companies who have not yet cleared their tax liabilities amounting to above Rs 500 crore each.
Surprisingly, the government has also given up saying that out of the total recoverable amount of Rs 3.38 lakh crore, about Rs 2.45 lakh crore cannot be recovered as matters related to tax recovery has hit a legal roadblock.
In a startling revelation, it has come to the notice that there are some 132 companies who have not paid their corporate taxes to the tune of Rs 500 crore each. The total due tax is to the tune of Rs 3.38 lakh crore, which is Rs 62,000 more that than the country's Defence Budget. Notably, the allocation for India's Defence Budget for the year 2017-18 is just Rs 2.74 lakh crore, which is much lesser than the tax liabilities of 132 corporate firms.
It's pertinent to mention here that an allocation for Defence Budget in the Union Budget is highest among all other departments such as education, health, social welfare, etc.
Not even this, the unpaid corporate tax is much higher than the education and health budget allocations of the country. According to the Finance Ministry data, the unpaid tax amount is of all such companies which have tax liabilities of Rs 500 crore and above and below it. However, there are over 200 companies which have tax liabilities of above Rs 100 crore, but lesser than Rs 500 crore.
Notably, the government in its reply to the Parliament had admitted that out of the total unpaid tax liabilities, the government is not able to recover Rs 2.45 crore.
Explaining the reasons behind non-recovery of huge amount of the tax, the government said that there is stay on the matters pertaining to recovery of Rs 1.20 lakh crore tax, while the companies have not enough funds to recover their corporate tax liabilities to the tune of Rs 84,000 crore and there are pending cases of about Rs 30,000 crore which is related to those companies of which liquidation is being done.
According to a government official, under the given circumstances, recovery of tax from all such companies is also a distant dream for the government.