Non-adversarial Tax Administration

The litigation in Central and Service tax matters is dwindling for an altogether different reason - not necessarily attributable to the litigation policy on the Central Government. When the departmental auditors visit an assessee for an audit, the assessee's gullibility is first judged. Then, the assessee is confronted with half a dozen issues unearthed by the audit time. Most assessees are not upto date with case laws, clarificatory circulars, or even the latest amendments to the statue law. They are "advised" that litigation is time consuming, expensive, leading to demands of duty/tax, penalty, pre-deposits and what not. Most assessees taken hint and seek guidance on closing the matter. As I have noticedin practice, vast majorityof the issues raised are not serious offences or legal disputes. They are perfectly safe, and in many cases, the law would have already been settled in favour of the assessee. But, the gullible assessees agree to settle the issue with audit team. Thus, "dropping" the audit para will not cause any risk to the audit team officers, while it gives the satisfaction to the assessee of having obtained a Nil report, though at a cost. I have posted this kind of messages on a couple of earlier occasions. But, surprisingly, none has either supported my comments, nor has attempted to rebut it. This lack of response shows a pregnant silence.

Gururaj B N 08/06/2015