Union Minister Arun Jaitley today urged citizens to pay their due share of taxes "honestly" to reduce dependence on oil as a revenue source, and virtually ruled out any cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel saying it could prove to be counter-productive. While salaried class pay their due share of taxes, Jaitley said "most other sections" have to improve their tax payment record, which is keeping India "far from being a tax-compliant society". "My earnest appeal, therefore, to political leaders and opinion makers ...would be that evasion in the non-oil tax category must be stopped and, if people pay their taxes honestly, the high dependence on oil products for taxation eventually comes down.
