Education Cess - the RTI Trail
ON 7th March, I asked the Revenue Secretary
Sir,
I would like to have the following information under the Right to Information Act.
1. Amount of Education Cess collected under Direct Taxes from 2004-05 to 2014-15, each year separately.
2. Amount of Education Cess collected under Indirect Taxes from 2004-05 to 2014-15, each year separately.
3. Amount of Secondary and Higher Education Cess collected under Direct Taxes from 2006-07 to 2014-15.
4. Amount of Secondary and Higher Education Cess collected under Indirect Taxes from 2006-07 to 2014-15.
5. Details of how the amounts collected were spent/distributed/allocated year wise.
As you are the Revenue Secretary, I assume that the information must be readily available with you.
On 16th March, I was informed that my request has been transferred to CBDT and CBEC.
On 17.03.2015, an Under Secretary in CBEC informed me that they do not have the information and my request has been transferred to the Director of Data Management (DDM).
On 31st March, DDM informed me the education cess on Customs and Central Excise collected from 2006-07. They informed me that separate figures are not maintained for Service Tax.
On 13.4.2015, the CBEC Under Secretary again informed me that information in points 2 & 4 is not held by him and the Director of Data Management might have it.
On 15.04.2015, he again informed that with respect to point No. 8, Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax are the three taxes administered by CBEC and they don't have information on other taxes and he doesn't have information on Points 10 & 12. [Please note that my query did not have points 8, 10 and 12]
On 07.05.2015, the Deputy Director of Income Tax (Systems) informed that the data required as per point 1 & 3 is not available in the format asked for i.e year wise and collation of the same would require to disproportionately divert the resources of the Public authority concerned.
I didn't want to further waste the nation's money in these babus working overtime to ensure that information is not provided. So, I didn't appeal.
They don't know how much they collected, they don't know where the money went - and they don't know what you should do with the credit of education cess accumulated by you.
What can poor Modi do?