God said, Let there be light; Board said let there be commissionerates
GOD said, "Let there be light and THERE WAS light." God is alleged to have made light from nothing - blissfully in those days there were no investigating agencies to record a statement from Him.
CBEC said, "let there be Commissionerates" and Lo and Behold, There are Commissionerates! The Board also followed God and made these offices out of nothing - there are no office buildings and so there are no addresses, there are no officers, though technically there are Chief Commissioners and Commissioners holding additional charge of these Commissionerates. Not a chair has moved an inch; not a paper has changed hands; not an officer has changed his position - and we have thousands of new offices, which have come into existence. CBEC has done the impossible.
A couple of thousand Superintendents are waiting for their much dangled promotion and so are officers of all ranks from AC to CC. The entire reorganisation exercise was to grant promotion to the frustrated officers, though higher revenue and better service were masqueraded as reasons for the massive re-haul of the Department. Nobody is against the Department's over-stagnated officers getting promotion - let them all be given double promotions, but why should the tax-paying citizens of this country be subjected to such cruel harassment? Look at the massive destruction that new babus can cause - the amount of paper that will be wasted on more Show Cause Notices, audit reports and what have you, the number of additional cars that will be polluting the atmosphere, the number of lowlife furniture that will be bought - the list is endless and we will all have to pay for this.
In the last cadre review, they promised the Government that creation of more appellate Commissioners will generate more revenue as if people were just waiting for the orders from the appellate Commissioners, to stand in queue outside banks to pay up the demands. These Appellate Commissioners created more litigation and virtually clogged the High Courts!
Yesterday the Board issued a Press Note:
The Central Board of Excise and Customs has implemented the cadre restructuring of the Indirect Taxes formations, with effect from 15th October 2014. The restructuring of formations is aimed (at) creating larger number of compact commissionerates, by reorganizing the existing commissionerates. This shall provide better tax payer services and deepen the tax base. Taking into account the growth in Service Tax over the last decade four exclusive zones for Service tax have been created in metro cities, and the number of service tax commissionerates have been increased from 7 to 22. Similarly with expansion of ports, the number of Customs Commissionerates has gone up from 34 to 60. In the context of self assessment, the department is also laying emphasis on non intrusive controls by creating 45 audit commissionerates. Trade notices have been issued by the Chief Commissioners, for information of the trade and assesses. There may be some teething troubles on account of reorganized jurisdictions. Trade may bring to notice of the department any issues they are facing so that timely resolution can take place.