Punjab strengthening digital tax administration for more transparency and efficiency in Taxation : Harpal Singh Cheema

Chandigarh : Punjab Finance, Planning, Excise and Taxation Minister Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema on Thursday said that the state Taxation Department will adopt latest software and technological solutions to strengthen its digital tax administration to meet the challenges of the environment in which businesses are operating now days.
Chairing a review meeting with the officials of Taxation Commissionerate who visited Telangana to study its GST administration, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that the digital technologies adopted by newly setup Tax Intelligence Unit (TIU) were proving to assist the tax authorities to drive better enforcement, increasing the tax base, and plugging leakages.
He encouraged the officials to look for more technological solutions especially tailored as per the requirements of the state to plug any possible tax evasion, incorrect reporting, and administrative errors.Meanwhile, Taxation Commissionerate Team shared its experiences about study tour of Telangana and elaborated the best practices adopted by the state in the GST Administration.
A PowerPoint presentation was given by the team showing the practices such as online monitoring system, return compliance, scrutiny of returns, post audit of refund etc. being followed by Telangana.
They apprised the Finance Minister that the state of Telangana is being assisted by IIT Hyderabad in data analytics and development of IT based modules in the implementation of GST administration.
Cheema exhorted the team to devise a strategy to integrate the best practices of Telangana with the best practices already being followed by Punjab. He said that the tech tools should be friendly to honest taxpayers as they need a clear strategy and will be required to keep pace with the evolving digital tax administration.
Prominent amongst others, Financial Commissioner Taxation Vikas Partap and Taxation Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav were also present in the meeting.