PAC Dismayed that CBEC is devoid of any mechanism to assess, monitor and enhance efficiency of survey operations in Service Tax
THE Public Accounts Committee in its 79th report to Parliament has come down heavily on the Service Tax wing (if there is one) of the CBEC regarding the administration of tax collection. The Committee deplored that field surveys, construed as an important mechanism for widening the tax net have not been carried out with right earnestness by the Commissionerates . The Committee was dismayed that the Department was devoid of any mechanism to assess, monitor and enhance the efficiency of survey operations. Though instructions have been issued to filed formations on 23-11-2011 to create special cell in each Commissionerates mandated with the task of identifying potential assessees, the Committee found the reply of the Ministry silent regarding the status of creation of these cells in all the Commissionerates, the number of cells created so far and the number of service providers that were brought to the tax net as a result thereof.
The Committee also noted that:
there is a lack of perspective planning in the matter of deployment of staff on such a vital source of revenue collection viz., Service Tax. Taking into consideration the amount of revenue collected from Service Tax and Central Excise during the year 2011-12, the Committee are surprised to find that in contrast to the deployment of nearly 40000 officers for excise, only 4000 to 5000 officers have been deployed for Service Tax stream and that too after withdrawing from the Central Excise stream. Apparently, Service Tax wing has been working for more than 15 years, with no staff of its own. The Committee are dismayed to note the helplessness expressed both by the Finance Secretary and Chairman, Central Board of Excise & Customs in this regard especially when, Ministry of Finance is itself one of the nodal authorities for examining and sanctioning requisite staff to Ministries. The Committee feel that the staff requirement be examined on priority basis by the concerned authorities in order to ensure that the Service Tax Collections, which have increased phenomenally from Rs. 407 crore in 1994-95 to Rs. 97,389 crore in 2011-12 does not suffer for want of human resource .
Please also see our CobWeb