By IANS,
Shimla : Himachal Pradesh’s income tax department has failed to achieve its target of collecting tax worth Rs.4.8 billion ($120 million) during 2007-08, said officials.
The IT department officials said here Thursday that they were able to collect only Rs.4.1 billion during the period, Rs.700 million short of target.
Although last fiscal’s collection was more than the previous year it has failed to achieve the target set by the head office, said officials.
Each year the head office sets an income tax target for each state.
Income Tax Commissioner Akhilesh Ranjan said his team of officials was looking into the matter.
There are currently over 260,000 income tax payers in the state. Of these, over 15,000 were added this year alone.
Government employees are the highest group of income tax payers in the state followed by people from the business community.
In 2003, the central government announced a tax holiday for all those setting up industrial units in the state. This is to continue till 2010.
The income department every year loses huge sums of money due to this tax holiday, said another official.