Promoted IRS officers get foreign 'training' for five days
115 newly promoted Income Tax Assistant Commissioners are undergoing a training in Malaysia for five days which ends tomorrow. What are these experienced Income Tax officers of India going to learn in Malaysia in five days? Is it a pleasure trip - fully paid for by the Welfare State? We are talking of restricting the import of Flat Panel TVs to salvage the ailing economy and here is a group of IRS officers who are on a State sponsored foreign jaunt - and each of them will cost more than a flat TV. In fact these trainees are just in time to overcome the ban on flat panel TVs - if they return to India before 26th. Maybe many of them will have these TVs as baggage.
The officers are extremely happy that even promoted officers are considered by the Government for this extravaganza, which was a restricted privilege of the directly recruited IRS officers. This is the first time that promotee officers are being sent abroad as part of training.
Now, the Probationers in all the services are given this foreign trip as part of their training. India has a long history of tax laws - after all didn't we have a Kautilya much before taxation was considered to be a subject in the rest of the world? It is really ridiculous that we have to send our taxmen to Malaysia to learn taxes.
Promotee IRS officers in the CBEC are not given any training at all, let alone a foreign one, for many of them retire within a year of getting promotion. Now, after cadre review, if young officers get promoted as Assistant Commissioners, they can ask for a foreign training on par with the Income Tax Assistant Commissioners!
Instead of foreign holidays, the Tax Department should attach its officers to the assessees for a period of three months and these officers should be made to comply with all the tax provisions, to the satisfaction of the tax authorities. Then they will understand how difficult it is to be an assessee.
Doesn't the Audit object to such national waste? - No, the officers of the IA&AS who run the Audit Department also have their foreign jaunts!