CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra on the sidelines of an event organized by Assocham said, "In direct taxes, lots of reforms have been done and we have consolidated direct tax reforms. Taxpayers net has gone up. We have added large number of taxpayers. Our taxpayers' base is now 8 crore".

He also said that Income tax officials cannot pick up a case on their discretion and only 0.5% of the cases are brought under scrutiny by the Income tax department. The department of Income Tax is making all possible moves to reduce direct interface between assesses and taxman.

In respect of e-assessment, the Chairman said that the procedure has begun for Income tax forms in September 2017 and till now 60,000 cases have been dealt with through the process.

With Inputs From PTI