Paradip, Dec. 3: A rush for PAN cards and filing income tax returns has been witnessed here ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced scrapping of high-value notes on November 8.
Tax consultants and income tax lawyers here are working overtime to meet the sudden surge in demand for Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards and filing income tax returns. A sizeable number of these applicants are non-salaried people, especially homemakers, small-time businessmaen, contractual workers and students. The majority of them will be filing the tax returns for the first time.
"In the past 48 hours, I have received 30 clients. The number of clients in such a short period is unusual. All of them are in possession of PAN cards. However, they were not paying income tax. Now they want to figure in the list of tax-payers," said tax practitioner Ananga Kumar Sahu.
Sahu said he had received over 150 applications for PAN cards.
"Our daily work has gone up manifold. We are forced to say no to some clients as it's practically impossible to provide service to so many people in such a short duration," he said.
Tax practitioners from Paradip and Kendrapara told The Telegraph that they had a similar experience. One of them said there was overload of professional work from the day Modi announced demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes.
"We have stopped attending to old tax-related litigations of our existing clients. Rush for new PAN cards and the filing of income tax returns have forced us to keep those jobs pending. Lower income groups and non-salaried people form the bulk of such new clients," said tax lawyer Santosh Kumar Sahu.
"Nearly 50 contractual workers engaged in various industries and factories in Paradip have visited my chamber since the past one week either for PAN card or filing income tax returns. All of them claimed their source of income was legal, but had never thought of filing tax returns in the past. Some are even filing tax returns with retrospective effect," said tax consultant Ramesh Mohanty.
"Acting on the advice of my husband, who runs a grocery store, I have applied for a PAN card. It will come in handy for depositing cash over Rs 50,000 in my bank account," said 40-year-old homemaker Minati Mallik.
Sandeep Tripathy, a 19-year-old college student from Kendrapara town, said: "PAN cards have become a vital document for citizens. So, I decided to consult a lawyer and apply for it".
"We have also faced queries from clients who wanted the legality of accepting and depositing cash balances of their friends and relatives in their own account without proper documents. I advised them against it and told them that such transaction would draw the attention of the taxmen. One of the clients is a zero-balance Jan Dhan account holder," said tax consultant Ananga Sahu.
Axe on licence
The commercial tax department here has moved to cancel 1,500 sales tax licenses as they faced the charge of tax evasion. Farms, business houses and contractors, who had tax identification numbers, are being taken to task for evading sales tax or for not filing tax returns.
They are being served show cause notices and their licenses are being cancelled under Orissa Value Added Tax Act, 2004, said commercial tax officer Lal Bahadur Biswal.
