I-T Assesment To Be Foolproof

The income tax department plans to improve the assessment process in order to recover mounting arrears.

According to department sources, a weak assessment process was one of the major reasons behind inefficiency in the department and needed to be rectified immediately.

As part of the strategy, the department will ask assessing officers to improve the quality of assessment to prevent disputed demands from arising as far as possible, sources said. The assessing officers will be asked to avoid unnecessary additions and only make demands on a more tangible basis, said a senior source.

The department will also focus upon the role of the tax recovery officer as he is the only one empowered to carry out arrests and attach immovable property. The post of a tax recovery officer has been by and large neglected so far.

At present, there is a lack of correlation between the assessment wings and the recovery wing, points out P K Sarma, income-tax chief commissioner, Calcutta.

Sarma said some decisions aimed at improving coordination between the assessment wings and the recovery wing may be taken at the all-India chief commissioners meeting. The meeting is scheduled to be held next month.

The issue of making each individual income tax commissioners office a profit centre will also be discussed at the meeting.

This idea was mooted by former finance minister P Chidambaram as an incentive to income tax commissioners to exceed collection targets. However, this has been hanging fire since last year.

As part of the scheme, it was proposed that each commissioner would be set a revenue collection target.

The amount collected as surplus would not be entered into the books as revenue, but will be utilised for beefing up the departments infrastructure.

Officials said this exercise would be accompanied by adequate accountability at all levels.

The pending income tax bill is likely to be introduced in the next session of Parliament. Sources feel it will be introduced in the house with minor changes.