Tax administration to be both strict and liberal

It is quite often that officers of the department are either too strict or too liberal irrespective of whether taxpayers are evaders or complainant

I have chosen this subject because of its contemporaneous importance. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in a recent speech on the occasion of Income Tax Day celebration, said that “those gaming the system are the ones taxmen have to keep a watch on ... but if the assessees are not avoiding or evading taxes, the taxmen owe them good service”. It is a gem of an administrative principle which dates back to Mahabharata. Lord Krishna is supposed to have said: “Protect the good and destroy the evil people.” This is perennially the perfect principle of general administration and obviously also of