Need more direct and indirect tax reforms: Tarun Bajaj

There is need for further reforms in the direct and indirect tax regimes, revenue secretary Tarun Bajaj said.

With regard to direct taxes, there is a need to "fix the capital gains on all fronts. Second is the personal income tax and the third is to rewrite the code itself to simplify it," Bajaj told ET in an interview. "If you do that, litigation will reduce," he said, laying down the agenda for reform.

He said the goods and services tax (GST) needs to be rationalised and there is a case for making the exemption-less personal income tax regime better than the old one. In the case of GST, the number of slabs needs to be reduced and another look taken at exemptions. "We are reaching a stage in our economy where we need to give complete stability to the tax structures on both sides," he said.


Bajaj said increased compliance is providing a boost to revenue and the scheme to allow updated returns has been successful. "We have got about 4.5 lakh updated returns and some corporates have also filed updated returns," Bajaj said.