The Agony of the Taxpayer; Pragmatic Board and Pedantic Field
"..................Officers of the Department must not take advantage of ignorance of an assessee as to his rights. It is one of their duties to assist taxpayer in every reasonable way, particularly in the matter of claiming and securing any relief and in this regard the officers should take initiative in guiding the taxpayer where proceedings or other particulars before them indicate that some refund or relief is due to him. This attitude would in the long run benefit the Department for it would inspire confidence in him that he may be sure of getting a square deal from the Government..."- CBDT
It is heartening to note that the CBDT has given such humane guidance to the field officers. The best thing that the field officers can do to enhance the respect for and trust in the Department, is to follow these valuable words of advice in letter and in spirit, but then, sometime overzealous, even if well meaning, efforts to collect the revenue end up sacrificing these humane niceties on the way, and thus derail the efforts of the CBDT to earn taxpayer's confidence and trust. That must not be allowed to happen. An action or inaction which erodes any taxpayer's faith in Indian tax and judicial system does not do any of us any good. The well meaning advice given by the CBDT must be implemented to the fullest extent.
The advice contained in the circular, which is reproduced above, is also legally binding on all the field officers. It is indeed a pity that even after such a pragmatic approach being conveyed to the field officers in no uncertain terms, a pedantic approach, as adopted by the Assessing Officer, is adopted in practice.
It does not end here.
When the first appellate authority gives relief in such deserving cases, the agony of the taxpayer is not allowed to come to an end. The appeals against the relief granted by the first appellate authority are filed as a matter of routine. One can understand the young Assessing Officers being overzealous in their approach and making such mistakes, something is needed to be done to ensure that the appeals are not filed before the higher forums as a matter of routine. Only if the field authorities are little more cautious, and stay away from such pedantic approach, such thoughtful initiatives and pragmatic approach of the Government, at the highest level, will earn more goodwill and greater trust at the ground level. There has to be proper mechanism to ensure that such frivolous appeals are not filed. However, if that does not happen and these frivolous appeals continue to clog the system ……..
This is not an extract from a DDT. It is extracted from a recent order of the ITAT.