Tall Demands, Small Rewards

The finance minister is reported to have fumed with anger when, during his visit to Bombay, the tax department could not give him some statistical information in the manner he desired! Though one does not hold a brief for the tax departments inability to acquiesce with the FMs request, it is also necessary to appreciate the handicaps under which tax personnel function. It is time that the FM gave some thought to the needs and aspirations of the tax people engaged in the highly sensitive, complex and onerous task of tax computation and collection. And that, under the most unsatisfactory and strenuous conditions of work.

The greatest handicap for the tax department is perhaps the inadequate space available to them. Their list of woes is long the staff and officers work under pathetic conditions, there are no conveniences available for taxpayers and their consultants, sanitary and water facilities are overchoked, records are being kept in corridors in an open and unguarded manner, forms and other tax stationery, computers and typewriters are all piled together with unwieldy furniture cramming the available space. A paucity of funds has ensured that even reference books and tax reports are not accessible to the department.

Unfortunately, no steps are being taken to improve the situation. Some adhoc grants are occasionally given for the purchase of computers, cars, jeeps etc, but these can hardly substitute for a permanent solution to the daily hurdles faced by the department.

In the matter of personnel policies also, the treatment given to the tax department is step-motherly. While the expectations from the tax departments are sky high, the issue of giving appropriate status to its apex body and field officers seems to be the governments last priority. The suggestions from diverse expert committees have almost gone unheeded, with no explanations or justifications. Committee after committee has recommended giving appropriate status to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (the apex body in tax administration), its chairman, members and field staff. The Wanchoo Committee in 1971 recommended that the CBDT should be made an autonomous board with its chairman assigned the status and pay of secretary to the government of India. It also maintained that the government should respect its autonomy and the board should be insulated from political pressures.

Delegation of full financial powers to CBDT on the lines available to the posts and telegraph board was also recommended. Such powers were considered absolutely necessary if the board is to adequately discharge its responsibility of running the department efficiently.

Besides the Wanchoo Committee, the Choksi Committee and the Yardi Committee also made similar recommendations. Even the recommendation of the Estimate Committee of Parliament (1991-92) in its tenth report, that the chairman of CBDT should be given the rank and status of secretary to the GOI, has been ignored. The Estimate Committee said:

The committee is amused at the contradictory stand taken by the ministry in deeming the two departments viz. income tax and customs and central excise to be more important than the railway board and simultaneously expressing themselves against conferring upon the head of these organizations the rank and status of a secretary to the government of India, particularly when the chairman, railway board, holds the rank of principal secretary to the government of India. The committee finds no reason why similar status cannot as well be given to the chairman of the CBDT and the CBES.

An organization cannot work independently and produce results if its rank and file are given instructions not by its own head but by an authority Secretary, Revenue belonging to some other service, with the CBDT chairman playing only a secondary role.

At the field level also, the officers of the Indian Revenue Service (income tax, central excise and customs) are being discriminated against vis-a-vis the Indian Administrative Service. The Wanchoo Committee has said that supremacy of the administrative service is a hangover from the colonial era. It argued that the income tax service should have the same scale of pay and status as IAS officers.

In Japan, for instance, the taxation service is governed by a separate salary schedule which is higher in terms of pay and affords greater status to the administrative service.

Why are you not, Mr Finance Minister, recognizing the merit, status and contribution of the persons for whom you have set the unenviable task of collecting Rs 45,000 crore by way of income tax and more than Rs 10 million crore by way of excise and customs? Isnt it time that their long overdue demands be met while implementing the Pay Commissions recommendations? It should not be difficult to convince the cabinet of the justification for this.

Give this department the facilities they so need and their services could easily begin to count among the best in the world. Viscount Simonds, in one of his decisions, has said: The law must be related to changing standards of life... having regard to fundamental assessment of human values and purposes of society... This makes it imperative that there is a continuing study as regards tax and other economic laws. Ad-hoc decisions and piecemeal solutions cannot deliver. A unified and concerted effort is necessary.The Wanchoo Committee recommended that the CBDT be made an autonomous board with its chairman assigned the status and pay of secretary to the government of India.