While speaking to a batch of trainee officers of the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), who called on him at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here, Mukherjee said the role of civil servants has transformed from being regulators and administrators to being facilitators.
The President said the duty of tax collection is a sovereign function of the state and that the purse of revenue collection has to be maintained with utmost care because it governs the implementation of all schemes of development and welfare.
The Union Budget presented by the first Finance Minister Shanmugam Chetty, he said, involved a total revenue collection of Rs 171.15 crore.
"Over the years, Indian economy has expanded enormously and gathered momentum. Income Tax in India forms a major part of total tax revenue in India. The direct taxes that contributed 36 per cent of overall tax collection of India in 2000-01 formed 50 per cent tax revenue in 2015-16," he said.
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