Finance Minister P Chidambaram to meet tax officials tomorrow

NEW DELHI: With an aim to bring in clarity and "non-adversarial" tax administration, Finance Minister P Chidambaram will meet senior officials of the Central Board of Excise and Customs ( CBEC) here tomorrow.

At the conference of the Chief Commissioners and Directors General of Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax, Chidambaram will also discuss " a fair mechanism for dispute resolution," according to a Finance Ministry statement.

Chidambaram's first meeting with the top CBEC officials since he took charge in the Finance Ministry, comes in the backdrop of contraction in the industrial growth amid slowdown in economy.

The industrial output showed contraction at 0.1 per cent in the April-June quarter of the current fiscal against a growth of of 6.9 per cent in the same period last year.

The slowdown is showing its impact on the revenue collection of the government which is facing a fiscal pressure.

Against the annual growth target of 27 per cent, indirect tax -- customs, excise and service tax -- collections during the first four months of this fiscal rose by 22 per cent.

The Budget for the fiscal 2012-13 had set a target of indirect tax collection at Rs 5.05 lakh crore. In the April-July period, the collection stood at Rs 1.45 lakh crore.

In his first public statement after taking charge of the finance portfolio on August 1, Chidambaram had assured investors "clarity in tax laws, a stable tax regime, a non-adversarial tax administration and a fair mechanism for dispute resolution".

The investors responded well to his statement as is evident from the foreign institutional investors pumping in over Rs 6,700 crore in the equity market this month so far.