The government has no plans to abolish the controversial Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) or replace it with higher corporate tax despite demands from the industry associations, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

"Since FBT is a tax on disguised perquisites to employees by employers justified both on the principles of vertical and horizontal equity, there is no case for replacing it with a higher corporate income tax," Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said in a written reply.

FBT has fetched the government Rs 4,027 crore (Rs 40.27 billion) till February 2007 against a target of Rs 4,800 crore (Rs 48 billion) for the fiscal 2006-07, he said.

In another reply, the minister said several unaccounted transactions have been detected on the basis of the monthly statement filed under the Banking Cash Transaction Tax (BCTT), and enquiries have been carried out in many cases.

This includes a multi-crore transaction undertaken by seven persons at a nationalised bank branch in Delhi, Bansal said, adding that the findings of these enquiries have been referred to the jurisdictional assessing officers for taking proper action.