In order to promote a non- adversarial tax regime, CBDT today said that remedial action on audit objections by CAG should be initiated by the tax Department within 2 months and appeals should not be filed if unjustified.
Modifying the guidelines for dealing with audit objection, Central Board of Direct Taxes said: "Appropriate remedial action should invariably be initiated within two months of the receipt of the local audit report and necessary orders should be passed within 6 months thereafter."
As per the circular, the adverse order of the first appellate authority in cases involving revenue audit objections should be carefully scrutinised by the Commissioner.
The Board has considered the effect of such remedial action, and its ultimate fate in appeal, and decided to modify the existing instruction for dealing with remedial action on Revenue Audit objections that are not accepted by the Department, an official statement said.
"The modified instruction will avoid creation of un-collectible demand and reduce litigation with the assessee in such cases where the Department itself finds the Revenue Audit objection not acceptable," it said.
It is another step in the direction of a non-adversarial tax regime, it added.
Currently, CBDT receives taxpayer grievances through
separate channels like online grievance redressal system Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring (CPGRAM), and Aaykar Sampark Kendra (ASK), among others.
Jindal further said that various e-initiatives and ways to bridge the communication gap were discussed by the taxmen.
Also, the meeting discussed on detailed action plans for giving publicity to Income Disclosure Scheme and the Dispute Resolution Scheme announced in the budget. It was decided that Income Tax Commissioners will hold town-hall meetings in their respective zones and inform people about the details of the scheme.
Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairman Najib Shah said that the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) was on top of the agenda of the two-day meeting.
"With the GST draft law in public domain, and CBEC having to play a crucial role we had detailed discussion. The discussion was also on IT preparedness of CBEC to meet the requirements of GST.... We have trained a lot of officers in the states as well," Shah said.
Indirect tax reform GST will create an uniform taxation system through out the country by subsuming excise, service tax and other local levies.
He said a Ficci-KPMG study has showed a "high level of improvement" in taxpayer satisfaction as compared to last year. As much as 72 per cent of the taxpayers were satisfied as per the Survey.
Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said that the black money issue was discussed during the meeting, but declined to divulge the "strategy" being adopted by the department.
Adhia said various private sector experts during the meeting have suggested that unless the tax department 'walk the talk', then customer satisfaction will not be achieved.
Summing up the meeting, he said field officers got to know what is the expectation at the highest level so that they can move forward accordingly. In turn, both the boards (CBDT and CBEC) got to know the hardships being faced by the field officers in ensuring customer satisfaction.
