Revenue Targets - Tax Payers break their heads - CBEC Better than CBDT

By Vijay Kumar

A concerned Netizen reacted rather with anguish to our story, FM pats CBDT and CBEC Chairmen for exceeding even Revised Revenue Targets. He says,

It is, I believe, now known as to how CBDT and CBEC officers collect the money from the tax payers. First the demands are raised on the points/issues which are baseless and flimsy. Thereafter, Coercive measures are used to extract the money from tax payers. Many a time there are arithmetical errors in the assessment orders. The officers are just not at all willing to correct the errors and instead insist for first depositing the demanded sums as per order. Some of the officers are so unfair that they directly attach the bank accounts, especially the season is February and March, without even notifying the tax payer about its intention to do so. Because of the collection pressure on the officers justice is just for the name sake. The department just going on raising unjustified demands. When it comes to refunds. The refunds are delayed during last quarter of the year.

Now the question arises ‘does the FM wants the targets to be met in this manner and then pat the back of the department?' Or the Finance Minister is unaware of ground realities and hardships caused to the tax paying community. In any case, FM ought to be aware of such practices. So is he also giving a deaf ear and blind eye to the Industry in such a case. Whatever be the proportion of such collection, Government should not forget that whole of the tax is paid by this community and the tax payer must be given fair treatment, if not respect.

The Government should really think that life is not going to end this year. If the tax is really due it will come in the next year. Next year also there are going to be revenue targets. This target pressure is really creating lot of unjust and inconvenience to assessees. I am sure many of the officers must not be doing it willingly and happily. The Government should focus on enabling the Industry for growth and the collections will automatically increase. This will also reduce a lot of avoidable litigation. Let there be REAL increase and do away with the pressure tactics.

There has been noticeable change in CBEC over the years and such measures are not very common. It is more common in income tax.

Let the tax payer spend that much time and effort in generating and increasing the business and thereby real revenue.