JM Kishore among WCO Awardees

By Vijay Kumar

FM Calls for Non-Adversarial Tax Administration

JM Kishore is an appraiser with Vizag Customs. He has been an appraiser for the last 17 years. This year the CBEC honoured him with the WCO Certificate of Meritalong with 13 other officers. In 2006, Kishore had won an international competition conducted by WCO on classification. Why we mention Kishore particularly is because he had contributed several analytical articles for TIOL.

The function to present the awards was held yesterday at the Zorawat Auditorium in Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi. It was a multiple function to

1 Present the Presidential awards by the Finance Minister - Investiture Ceremony.

2. Present the WCO Certificates of Merit.

3. Honour the former Chairmen of CBEC.

The investiture ceremony had to be shifted from the main auditorium to a small hall, as there was power failure in the main auditorium. Finance Minister Chidambaram presented the Appreciation Certificates to the thirty five officers who were conferred the award for “Specially Distinguished Record of Service” in 2012. He extended his compliments to the recipients and lauded the role of the Department in trade facilitation and enforcement and its contribution to the national exchequer.

Once Investiture was over, power was restored and the function shifted to the main hall. Revenue Secretary Sumit Bose was the Chief Guest. WCO certificates were distributed and former Chairmen of the CBEC were felicitated. The function was graced by all the ladies who are Members of the CBEC including the Chairperson.

FM presenting the Presidential Award to Subhash Prasad Singh, Inspector, Commissionerate of Service Tax, Mumbai-I

Cadre review:

The FM said that cadre review would be considered on a priority basis if CBEC would provide clarifications for the points raised by him. Now, what are his queries and why is CBEC not answering the Minister's queries?Why is CBDT cadre review held up when there are no pending queries?

Non-Adversarial Tax Administration:

The Finance Minister wanted non-intrusive intelligence gathering, and a non-adversarial tax administration. “Once the tax payer is confident that the relationship between a tax payer and officer is not a hostile relationship, you will find more and more people have become compliant to tax laws.”, he said. The Revenue Secretary said, “We will collect taxes in just and fair manner. We will stick to the fiscal targets that the government has fixed for us. We will collect revenues, but again in a just and fair manner,”

Aren't these people far away from reality? - Every day we find intrusive investigation by the most adversarial tax administration with the most hostile possible relationship and taxes being collected in the most unfair and barbaric ways. Are they not aware of the draconian New Year Circular? Who is to blame? The FM or the Inspector?