Income Tax Department's VISION 2020 - Draft for Discussion among Staff - 'Walking on Two Legs'
THE Income Tax Department has prepared a Draft for Discussion of the VISION 2020 Document. Apparently they now want feedback only from staff.
Increasing importance of direct tax in overall fiscal management of the government and its contribution to the nation's development is now well recognized. As per the vision statement contained in the Vision 2020 document, ITD aspires to be a partner in the nation building process by augmenting its “revenue mobilization apparatus” for optimization of revenue collection, ensuring compliance with the tax laws. This optimization is sought to be achieved through progressive tax policy, efficient & effective administration and improved voluntary compliance.
While the Direct Tax Code bill is in the Parliament, the Income Tax Department (ITD) is preparing itself simultaneously to carry out administrative reforms for effective implementation of the tax policy.
It is through improved voluntary compliance, ITD aims to optimize its resource mobilization efforts. However, to ensure full compliance, ITD would make use of targeted enforcement as well. Hence, ITD intends following a strategy of 'Walking on two legs', balancing excellence in service delivery with targeted non-intrusive enforcement.
Vision 2020 aims to provide a framework for sound tax administration, reflecting the aspirations of all the stakeholders, guiding ITD in all its operations and decision making. Though the document spells out the long term strategic direction of ITD, it also contains an operational strategic plan covering the five year period 2010–15.
The strategic plan outlines the initiatives for translation of the vision into a set of measurable goals and objectives after an analysis of the challenges in the new decade, followed by formulation of a strategy and its various elements in the form of action points. Seven Strategic projects with separate task forces working out the details have been identified to augment the “revenue mobilization apparatus”
The strategic plan also contains a detailed implementation plan with a monitoring mechanism and a set of measures of performance:
Voluntary Compliance Rate (VCR)
E-file rate by non-mandatory categories
Index of taxpayer satisfaction
Index of employee engagement
Vision 2020 is neither a prediction of what will happen, nor simply a wish list of desirable but unattainable goals. It is a document that contains what the Department believes is possible for it to accomplish provided it is able to integrate its people, processes and technology together to augment the “Revenue mobilization apparatus”. Vision is what vision does. Vision must be articulated, internalized and acted upon. At the end of it, the worth of the vision is in its executed reality. It is time for the Department to take stock of the achievements and look deeply into the shortcomings as lost ground can be retrieved and lost opportunities regained if action is taken now.
ITD is committed to throw its full weight behind the goals and the strategies to realize the positive potentials revealed by the analysis documented here. Activation of the strategies would require prompt decision making, disciplined execution, systematic implementation, and by inculcating a culture of collaboration across functional areas with cross-functional teams implementing the projects.
Incidentally the Draft Vision nowhere mentions CBDT anywhere – it is ITD all through! Is the CBDT on its way out?