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I-T- Demand notice issued mechanically merits being quashed, where passed in ignorance of assessment order giving clean chit to assessee: HCIndia discovers Lithium Resources in Mandya and Yadgiri districts of KarnatakaI-T- No disallowance under section 36(1)(iii) can be made if funds are available with the assessee, which are sufficient to meet the investment: ITATIndia's installed Nuclear Power Capacity to triple by 2031-32: MoSI-T- Penalty rightly quashed where assessment order proposing penalty is itself quashed: ITATGoyal sets USD 50 bn target for footwear industry to achieve by 2030I-T- Where public trust claims deduction under Chapter VIA & due to absence of separate provision in ITR for Section 80GGA at time of filing it, then claim being clubbed u/s 80G is valid: ITATIndian-origin German citizen nabbed with 6 kg of cocaine at IGI AirportIndia to remain steadfast in commitment to nurturing adolescents' talents: Health SecyAI-based SearchGPT to compete with Google: OpenAII-T- Assessee's acceptance of the cash in the form of SBNs, assessee being an Urban Cooperative Bank, which is not being covered by the RBI Circular, cannot be considered as unexplained for addition U/s. 68 of the Act: ITATDelhi liquor scam: United Spirits CEO summonedVAT - burden of proof lies with Department to verify & approve refunds to ultimate taxpayers: HCBiden to attend QUAD meeting to be held in New Delhi this yearST - Appellant is entitled to avail CENVAT Credit on re-insurance of motor vehicles and credit availed by it during relevant period from April, 2011 to March, 2012 on this score were all admissible credit: CESTATChinese youth furious over appeal to raise retirement ageST - As there is no positive act established against appellant with regard to suppression of facts, the period being transitional period, invocation of extended period was set aside: CESTATUS & allies allege North Korean hackers of stealing military secretsCus - Assessee-company is not liable to pay interest on deferential Customs duty arising out of the final assessment of bills of entry: CESTATMexican drug lords arrested in USCX - Cenvat credit of input services as per Rule 6(5) of CCR 2004, is allowed, even if such services are partly used for exempted businesses: CESTATNew Income tax Code to be developed internally by CBDT, says Revenue SecretaryCus - Department has not established any positive act on the part of appellant in regard to suppression of facts with intent to evade Customs duty, no grounds found for invocation of extended period, demand of CVD along with interest and imposition of penalties cannot sustain: CESTATKejriwal to remain in judicial custody till Aug 8CX - Refund of pre-deposit is governed by Section 35FF of Central Excise Act, 1944 and rate of interest is governed by statutory provisions and notifications issued in this regard, appellants are entitled for payment of interest as per provisions of Section 35FF and at the rate prescribed therein: CESTAT
 
Taxes are necessary, not tax officers

DDT in Limca Book of Records - Third Time in a rowTIOL-DDT 2913
19 08 2016
Friday

CAN we have more taxation and less taxmen? It is estimated that 92% of the taxes just flow into the treasury not because of the tax officers, but in spite of them. It is for collecting that 8% that we have so many raids, summonses, inspections, audits, arrests, show cause notices, prosecutions, orders, appeals and more appeals.

Can we think of a tax system with a bare minimum tax officers who are often an impediment to business and at best are a nuisance?

When we are talking of a new revolution in taxation in the country with the probable launch of GST, shouldn't we also think of an administration with few officers and more taxes? When there is so much talk on subsuming of several taxes, should we also not talk of subsuming various levels and shades of officers into one GST service?

It would also be a good idea to hand over GST to a totally new department which has absolutely no experience of collecting taxes - the Department of Official Languages may be a good choice - that is one department where the officers don't throw their weight around.

At present a Central Excise and Service Tax assessee has to bear the burden of officers at the level of Inspectors, Superintendents, Assistant Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Joint Commissioners, Additional Commissioners, Commissioners, Principal Commissioners, Chief Commissioners and Principal Chief Commissioners at the field level, with no clue as to what all these Commissioners are doing and the hierarchy about which the babus are very fussy. If you call a Deputy Commissioner an Assistant Commissioner, you have had it. One day you find the Division is headed by an AC and the next day you meet somebody else who says he is a DC. You meet a Principal Commissioner who says that he is also a Chief Commissioner and you meet another Principal Commissioner who says he is also a Commissioner. And all of them believe that they are engaged in the noble act of collecting taxes. You pay tax and they take the credit.

There is also the Audit wing of the Department as well as the CAG who make their seasonal unwelcome visits to your premises and ensure loss of peace for the next decade. There are more unwelcome visitors from the Preventive wings from the Commissionerate and the Director General, Central Excise Intelligence. You are expected to work to the satisfaction of all these officers. They can disturb you, they can destroy you. They can visit you at their pleasure, they can summon you and make you wait in their offices for hours and days together. They can ask you for any number of records including copies of your registration, returns and other documents which are already with them. They can take away your records and computers and never bother to return them even after their investigations are over. They can freeze your bank accounts, attach your properties and even arrest you. They can coerce you into giving statements in which they will make you write that the statement is given out of your own free will after you were hit by a bout of conscience. And the courts will say, the statement is evidence, while the departmental officers would say it is un-rebuttable proof. All these for the 8% of the total tax collection.

Will GST change the situation? Will the Central GST Offices sync with the State GST Offices? As of now in a State you have about 10 Commissioners/Principal Commissioners of Central Excise/Service Tax with a Chief Commissioner/Principal Chief Commissioner and the State VAT department is headed by a one single Commissioner. Maybe the Centre should also follow the State Model and there should be only one Commissioner for one State. Maybe One Commissioner for both CGST and SGST. Let it be ‘One State, One Tax, One Commissioner.' In fact, there should be equal number of posts in each grade in the CGST and the SGST and preferably, they should sit in the same office.

If the GSTN is really going to be all that IT efficient that it is hoped to be, perhaps 98% of the taxes will be collected without interference by the officers. Then you really don't need this army to collect the 2%.

Taxpayers may not really mind paying the taxes; what really worries them is complicated compliance and offensive officers.

Let us have more taxes, not more taxmen.

Timely and proper disposal of public grievances is one of hallmarks of good governance and CBDT must strive to accomplish this - CBDT Chief

THE CBDT Chairperson, Ms. Rani Singh Nair has in a D.O. Letter to all the Principal Chief Commissioners and Directors General says,

- Timely and proper disposal of public grievances is one of the hallmarks of good governance and CBDT must strive to accomplish this within the timelines laid down by the Government.

- As on date there are 3738 CPGRAMS grievances pending out of which 1073 grievances are overdue i.e. pending beyond the prescribed period of 60 days for disposal. They include 4 grievances which are overdue beyond 1 year, 137 grievances overdue beyond 6 months, 390 grievances which are overdue for a period between three to six months and 542 grievances pending over 2 months to 3 months.

- As per the Central Action Plan 2016-17, it was communicated that all public grievances pending as on 30th April, 2016 were to be disposed of by 30th June, 2016.

- It is regretted that the Officers have not disposed of such grievances within that timeline.

- A review of status of public grievances may come up in the next PRAGATI interaction to be held by the Hon. Prime Minister on the 24th August, 2016.

- It may be ensured that all grievances pending beyond 60 days are disposed of expeditiously.

- The number of grievances pending beyond 6 months should be brought down to zero before 24th August, 2016.

Maybe the CBEC is too busy with GST that they do not have any programme of disposal of grievances.

Please also see DDT 2782, 2804, 2821 & 2831.

CBDT Chairperson's D.O. No. Dir.(Hqrs)/Ch.(DT)/39(2)/2015/244513., Dated August 17 2016

New Exchange rates From Today

CBEC has notified new exchange rates for Imported Goods and for Export Goods with effect from 19th August 2016. The USD remains at 67.75 for imports and 66.05 Rupees for exports.

Notification No. 112/2016-Cus (NT)., Dated: August 18, 2016

To every economic policy and legislation, we must apply the acid test - how far will it blend the talent, energy and time of our people to fruitful ends and how far will it dissipate them in coping with legal inanities and a bumbling bureaucracy,

Nani Palkhiwala

Until Monday with more DDT

Have a nice weekend.

Mail your comments to vijaywrite@tiol.in


 RECENT DISCUSSION(S) POST YOUR COMMENTS
   
 
Sub: Ideal hypothesis sometime become joke

Dear Sir
Your perception is entirely wrong. 92% tax is coming because officers are there to do what they are doing for 8%.Its really nonsense to create such picture like India should demilitarize because there were only 4 wars since 1947 and for law and order police and paramilitaries are there. One can say like you have mention in article that there are only 1-2% are criminals in total population of 1.25 billion so we should scrap jails, police force, courts etc. Please be transparent before writing on such issues.

Posted by Anand Rai
 
Sub: Taxes are necessary, not tax officers

If we compare the State tax officers with that of Central, the difference is in multiples, may be ten times or even more?

If we go by the draft GST Law, the mindset of existing excise, service tax, VAT all put together is evident from the basic structure of law.

All provisions of VAT laws and Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax has been blended to include all types of returns, audits, inspections, preventive, search, seizure and all penal provisions have been retained. Further the scrutiny by departmental officers, special audit and each and every possible thing have been included?

We are far away from "respect the tax payer" era and putting in place laws like the model GST law which do not treat the tax payer in a positive manner in any aspect.

When you have a perfect system of bi-annual service tax return, why not replicate it in GST? Why one need a monthly return and then an annual return and again a report by a CA for the same returns/period?

This is called multiplicity of work without any revenue collection objective.

When tax is to be paid each month, let the return to be filed bi-annually with a provision and time line to revise the return, what purpose all these audits by CA, annual return etc would serve?

Your idea of giving this work to a new department is an out of the box idea which will never allowed to be in place in our Country.

There are all types of exclusions from the input tax credit - in fact all the VAT laws have been blended to make these.

Arbind Aggarwal

Posted by Schneider1 Schneider1
 
Sub: Simplistic

It is rather simplistic to assert that 92% of central indirect taxes flow into the treasury on their own volition and so we don't need so much work force only for the sake of remaining 8 %. For example, mora than 99 % people are law abiding and therefore can it be argued that we don't need so many police personnel. The fact is that voluntary compliance is also a result of the fact that there are taxmen. Even with so many taxmen, our cost of collection is one of the lowest in the world. There is certainly a need to increase the productivity of our taxmen and the productivity should not be measured merely by the figures of tax evasion detected; it should be measured with greater weightage by factors such as facilitating compliance by trade and industry, removing procedural irritants, timely alerting and educating them about the changes in law or rates etc etc. however it seems to be true that there are 'surplus' senior level positions now and that is a consequence of the typical Indian bureaucratic culture of creating posts at the senior levels not because they are functionally needed but to give promotions so as to maintain a degree of parity amongst more than a doze civil services.

Posted by Rakesh kumar
 
Sub: Taxes are necessary, not tax officers

taxes and tax officers both necessary but in limited manner. you have raised burning issue.the efforts of good officers in collecting and adjudicating is worthwhile mentioning but lakhs of baseless disputes carrying arabs of rupees is also their donation and contribution to the country and its economical illness. departmental defeats at tribunal and court level is more than 75% which is a good example.

your imagination cum suggestion to have a council sort of department to handle the taxation issues can be a truth or reality.such huge hierarchy is unwarranted unrequired and non tolerable too.desh ka paisa bahut barbaad ho raha hai.sarkari naukri ka aaram band hona chahiye.tax payer ko respect miley aur pacpan ke baad financial security ye aaj pm ka kartavya hai.isi community ne unhe jitaya hai.janta ke mehnat ke paise ko apni bapauti samjhne wale aur 6 hours daily se bhi kam kaam karne walon...baat baat par chutti lenewalon kamchor babuon ki hamen jarurat nahi hai.agar wakai pm apne predecessor se alag kuch karna chahtey hain to watawaran badlen desh ke tax administration ka.small hirarchy ho .rate of tax reasonable ho.100% billing ho. bharpur cenvat mile. baat baat par audit ya investigation na ho.ca ko cenvat checking ka hi kaam diya jaye.aur, aur..ek khaas baat


ek saaf safai scheme le aao. jismen appellate tribunal,courts level ke sabhi tarah ke disputes ko GST sahab aane ke pehle hi khatm kar liya jaye.jaise janm din par hum naha dhokar taiyaar hokar naye wastra men din manatey hain waise hi saaf suthre hokar gst regime men pravesh karen. shukriya is behatreen write uo ke liye.

Posted by Navin Khandelwal
 

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