The Income Tax Department needs to immediately add 30,000 more employees to carry out its existing operations, a senior Finance Ministry official said.“To avoid affecting the overall revenue collection and delivery of tax payer services, the department immediately requires 22,000 additional employees apart from filling up the 8,000-odd vacant positions,” the official said.
The department has 58,000 sanctioned positions and about 8,000 posts are lying vacant.
He said the department needs 4,000 officers (including 2,000 assessing officers), 4,000 inspectors, 12,000 tax assistants, data entry operators and other support staff, and about 2,000 as reserves.
The matter for additional staff will be raised in the annual conference of Chief Commissioners to be held in New Delhi on June 9 and 10, the official said.
“The department requires more staff to handle the massive data gathered by it through third party mechanism like Annual Information Return (AIR) and Central Information Branch (CIB),” he said.
The annual information return of high value financial transactions is required to be furnished under the Income-tax Act, 1961 by ’specified persons’ in respect of ’specified transactions’ registered by them during the fiscal.
The registering authorities for AIR are the Reserve Bank, and registrar of properties among others.
CIB collects information relating to specified transactions for which providing Permanent Account Number (PAN) is mandatory such as opening up of bank accounts, deals above Rs 50,000, property purchase of above Rs 5 lakh, and foreign travel involving expenditure of above Rs 25,000.
“The expansion of workforce from the current 50,000 to 80,000 would solve the immediate concerns of the department. This will help in detecting tax evasion cases and deepen and widen the tax base,” the officer said.
Eventhough the department ask for more staff. It is also seen in the department that so many income tax employees are simply sitting in the offices. Chatting with others reading magazines etc. But it is also important that the assessing officers have a lot of work. The main work load is on them. So the number of assessing officers must be increased to three times. which is the only solution. Data entry work(clerical work), peon , watchman,driver work etc. can be outsourced. Most inspectors are simply sitting. They think that their duty is only inspection. So the name must be changed. It should be Assistant Income tax officer. which may reduce the expenses. Number of responsible assessing officers only should be increased. One ideal structure
under one commissioner , 5 Addl.Commissioners, Under 1 Addl. Commissioners 10 assessing officers, 2-ACIT/DCIT, 8-ITOS. each ITO provided with either one assistant income tax officer or one tax assistant. Only one assistant staff (Including STA,TA, LDC or inspector)would be provided to each ITO. ONE outsourcing staff must be placed under each ITO
It is grossly incorrect and one- sided to say that all is lost for the income tax deptt. and the IRS is rotten. The IRS is a most sought after career for a very large number of brilliant and highly qualified young people. Even, joining and working at lower grades in the deptt. is not easy. This is the only deptt. in which there are very tough departmental examinations for the staff to become ITOs. The job content of this department is highly specialized, involving tricky interpretation of taxation laws. The officers have to match the wits of highly paid professionals day in and day out and are required to be ever alert. The staff and officers have to deal with very large number of tax payers every day, hear their tax cases, handle their grievances, tackle numerous objections raised by the internal and CAG audit, send reports to the superiors, etc., only because revenue is the main lifeline of the finance ministry. Without understanding these ground realities the deptt. should not be criticised. Many IRS officers have been recognized by the courts for their contribution to the building up of the tax laws over the years. One of the IRS officers rose to become the CEC. Many still, even after retirement, have been and are members of various high-powered statutory or autonomous bodies like the Settlement Commission, TRAI, Competition Commission, Electricity Regulatory bodies in the States, apart from serving as President, Vice-Presidents and members of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal.
It is not humanly possible for the CBDT or its Chairman to respond to all the criticisms in the press or media or the websites against the income tax department. The reason is that it is one of the departments employing the largest number of staff anf every day the acute shortage of staff has been rising. The workload on any officer on any given day in any year is several times more than what obtains in any other ministry or office. The constraints under which the staff and officers work, conduct surveys and searches (even in most adverse situations) and still try to attend to tax payers’ problems must be appreciated, instead of blindly criticising this hapless organization. The Chief Commissioners and Commissioners are very high ranking officers indeed and this is the only department where anyone can see any field officer anytime with their problems. And, unlike in the ministries, etc., there is no restriction at all on the entry into the ITOs and the chambers of even the CCITs. It is a fact that it is a public-dealing department and the officers and staff know that fact. There are aberrations everywhere in the world. This department is only a part of the global system. Therefore, to mercilessly criticize the staff and officers is not only unfair but very wrong. The aggrieved can always make written complaints to various authorities or seek information under the RTI Act, etc., if their grievances are genuine.
The CBDT, by the by, is the only department which has an high ranking officer entirely dealing with the grievances of the tax payers. And each person is individually replied to by the officer in charge of this dedicated cell.
People must never forget these facts.
nothing is going to happen, Most important thing to control the power of employee unions, so the top bross in income tax can utilize exiciting work force properly. Than again reassess the situation.
It is good indeed to see that realisation has finally dawned upon the masters of the department about the need to undo the damage done in the first ever restructuring in 2001, as has been pointed out by Mr. Vikram Ratnoo. It was a most damning step taken resulting in the creation of a top heavy department with neither the newly promoted officers, tax assistants, head clerks, etc. on one side, knowing anything about the intricacies of the tax laws and the procedures, nor the direct recruit parasites wanting to learn the subject.
The resultant chaos and corruption cannot now be undone. The people responsible for this damage with far reaching ramifications were applauded for only ensuring very fast and totally undeserved promotions for inefficient and corrupt higher echelons. Instead of trying to reach parity with the other services like the IA&AS, Indian Postal Service, etc., the IRS was happy to get additional posts of chief commissioners with no work whatsoever.
What is further needed really is to cleanse the department and the IRS to a reasonably presentable degree of corruption and rid of the corrupt officers (as lower level corruption is essentially a function of the corruption at the top)and also simultaneously instilling a sense of self respect and dignity among the corrupt IRS officers. Let them learn their job and inculcate the habit of acquiring knowledge before seeking for “tips” from big business and practitioners and then “demand” bribe for efficiency.
Let there also be a fair and unbiased assessment of the work and integrity those who became chief commissioners due to the windfall or the cloud burst of 2001. It is a fact that 95% of those were mere parasitic liabilities and made money right and left even from their non-gazetted subordinates-what to talk of spreading their palms before the tax payers and their representatives. Many of them even ascended the CBDT despite their ignorance of the laws or rules, having all along known to be thoroughly useless.
Will this syndrome now stopp? And the menace of the unions too?
It would be better for the department to take the help of the trained professionals as a part of machinary.
There has been a misconception among the public about the way the people are recruited. Nowadays, (since 1979) staff are recruited through staff selection commission and union public service commission and there can be no chance of corruption in that and everyone has to clear exams and interviews . Further only the people who interact with the department will know how much of shortage of staff is there. It is high time more number of people are taken in, as this is one department where general public has to interact, whether they like it or not. Further from next year all the processing and refund issuing jobs will be done by central processing centres (which are privatized) and there cannot be any more corruption as the general public think.
How to apply for this vacancies?
Yes. definitely. That much worth staff and offers are required. In India, vast jurisdiction is there, but less number of officers and officials are available. To reach the target of economic growth, definitely increase of strength is necessary. The Chief commissioners should follow up with the Ministry.
its true the department got its cadre restructuring in 2001 and it was decided to have an assessing officer per 5000 tax returns,at present there are 20,000 to 30,000 returns under each of the AOs. Apart from that the AOs require hell lot of follow up work to do, so its high time to add up this force for better service to the tax payer. It is pertinent to mention that cost of collection per Rs.100 in India is lowest at 45 Paise only, so even after adding this work force it will not going to effect the exchequer any more.
Yes, this will be a money-spiraling process; all involved from top to bottom will make money to engage a generation of young men and women who will enter by paying bribes and start taking bribes from day one.
It is a very good analysis by Mr. Aravindan.
Actually there is need for additional work-force at ground level. First Re-structure of the I.T.D. reduced number of ground level posts. Tax-payer service badly affected due to shortage of ground level posts. Now-a-days, increased work-force is being managed by hiring ‘Daily-wagers’ on 203 rupees per day.
Assuming the going corruption-quotent at a minimum of 6.5% in this jinxed department at present, and factoring in an addition of a minimum of 3% on account of the amount to be paid in bribes by the job seekers for selection as well as postings, the hiring of additional space and the rents to be paid, the additional furniture to be procured, etc., all of which is controlled through corruption, imagine the level the corruption quotient will reach!