Tax dodgers can avert penalty by paying up now: Chidambaram

A day before the deadline for advance tax payment expires, finance minister P Chidambaram today asked assessees to pay up by 15 March to avoid being penalised.

Chidambaram said the Revenue Department today issued notices to 35,000 assessees for failing to file income tax returns.

''Polite letters were sent to 35,000 such persons in the first lot. Two weeks ago we have sent letters to another lot of 35,000 persons. Today letters are being issued to a third lot of 35,000 persons,'' he told reporters in New Delhi.

Chidambaram said the tax department's efforts to check defaulters is bearing fruit with around 10,000 of the 70,000 defaulters who had received notices over the past one month coming forward and paying their taxes.

The government used records of various financial transactions of individuals like credit card payments and cash deposits and compared these with the returns they filed. Through this database, where everything is linked through the permanent account number (PAN), the government has identified more than 1.2 million non-filers of returns.

Chidambaram said the cumulative returns filed in the fiscal year ending this month was 17.7 million, as against 13.5 million returns in the corresponding year-ago period.