With reference to T R Rustagi's letter to the editor, "Finding the root cause" (January 12), I can confirm what he has said: Officers of the tax department had no accountability and were recklessly confirming unjust tax demands or rejecting legitimate refund claims.
This was due to the encouragement they received from previous finance ministers, who wanted more revenue at any cost. But reaching the target of fiscal deficit by ruining the tax department and destroying the confidence of taxpayers was the most deplorable step that went by the well deserved epithet of "tax terrorism".
The present finance minister, Arun Jaitley, has taken a path-breaking step by changing the above system. He has brought in a sense of fairness to tax administration. At his instance, a circular was issued by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) on December 18, 2015, where it was clearly laid down that all pending cases before the tribunal, high courts and the Supreme Court where the issues had been settled by the apex court in favour of the taxpayers should be withdrawn after examining them properly. Other cases where there was no merit on the side of revenue would be taken up later. For achieving this, a mechanism was prescribed.
A mechanism is being put in place to judge the performance of officers by examining the quality of adjudication orders passed by them even if these are in favour of revenue. The revenue secretary has publicly said that revenue realisation had to be done in a fair manner, not by holding up refunds or drawbacks due to assessees. The CBEC chairman emphasised this point at the internal meeting of chief commissioners and other senior officers. Written minutes have also been issued to that effect. As an ex-insider I can say that this is a commendable development.
There is a qualitative change in the attitude of the tax department, which was hitherto dominated by "play-safe" officers. For this, the credit must go to Jaitley.
S Mukhopadhyay New Delhi
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