To,
Hon’ble Chief Justice of India
Supreme Court of India
Subject: Bureaucracy in India – A Real Hurdle for Development of Country
Respected Sir,
“Minimum government, maximum governance” – is it fact or fantasy?
Government has merged key ministries in an apparent attempt to bring in more synergy in governance and make decision making quicker and more efficient. But is it turned into the desired picture of improvement in position of common man and the business segment? The reality is far away from the above given maxim.
In last two to three years tax regime in India seems to be going towards the bureaucracy led chaos. On one hand, country is facing the slow growth rate and on other hand, each year some tax proposals are put which badly affect the business environment. Ministers are not having enough expertise and/or time to go through the chaotic tax proposals drafted by the bureaucrats.
Powers given to the CBDT and CBEC seem to be used senselessly and in the unlimited manner. This affects the desire of common man in very adverse manner to pay the taxes and to obey the tax regime.
Like other common men, I also want to see my country growing by leaps and bounds. Following are some recent facts which I want to bring to your kind attention with remedies to cure these defects.
- Under Income Tax Act, 1961, there is a provision to get the accounts audited for certain persons in the prescribed formats.
- Powers to prescribe the formats of such audit reports as well as to prescribe the formats of Income Tax Returns are delegated to the Central Board of Direct Taxes.
- Under relevant sections of Income Tax Act, 1961, due dates of return filing are 31st July and 30th September immediately following the end of relevant financial year (i.e. 31st March) for non-audited and audited cases respectively.
- From the above point, any person of sound mind can observe that intention of legislature is to give time of 4 months and 6 months in non-audited and audited cases respectively.
- But CBDT issues the notification at any desired date without looking into the genuine hardship caused to the common men as well as business community. This year also, suddenly on 25/07/2014, CBDT issued a notification prescribing an altogether new format of audit report. And issued a schema (in simple terms, it is format for e-filing) in August, 2014. This has resulted into the curtailment of audit report filing time in indirect terms by nearly more than 4 months.
- When lakhs of business people and tax partitions across the country have opened the eyes of CBDT, on 20/08/2014, CBDT extended the date of filing audit report by 2 months without making the consequent change of extension of date of return filing. This is again the unlimited and senseless use of the delegated legislation by bureaucrats, as the intention of legislature can obvious be interpreted by reading of Section 44AB which is directly linked with the Section 139(1), so date of filing audit report can not be legally extended without extending the date of return filing.
- In writ petition hearings, government pleads about the loss of revenue due to extension of return filing due date. But shouldn’t we plead that such losses to government must be made good by imposing personal penalties and selling the personal properties of such unthoughtful bureaucrats (Board Members)??? What these persons do between 1st October to 31st March???
My suggestions to stop such unfair practices by Board Members.
- Any change in audit reports or income tax returns must be brought only after discussion of the same with committee representing business community at India level, Hon’ble C & AG of India and Central Council of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
- Income Tax return formats, audit report formats and such other forms (including e-filing schemas) must be notified in month of March each year.
- Section 119 and Section 295 of Income Tax Act, 1961 must be amended in the manner that – “Changes made in audit report forms and ITRs will take effect only from the next assessment year in which such changes are made.”
Hope you will take this matter in its real spirit and will help to stop the tax legislation (especially delegated legislation) to go into the wrong direction.
Jay Hind.
Yours truly,
Citizen of Independent India
Tejas Andharia
Bhavnagar (Gujarat)
Email ID: [email protected]
Author Bio
New PAN application rule should be changed, documentation process should be simply based on Aadhaar
IMPROMPTU (not out of context):
On the subject of “bureaucrats” / “bureaucracy”,- noted to have been chosen here for a very limited purpose, – anyone, if interested to have a truthfully wholesome understanding, especially in a delightfully enlightening mode, may find worthwhile a mindful Read , for the soulful wisdom echoed (by every word in it) :
“The United Kingdom and India- Past Ties and Promising Future” –
(the Lecture delivered by N A Palkhivala in London, in 1992)
SOURCE > We , the Nation THE LOST DECADES, pg 15 – 21
Intentions and acitons of the highest, the PM, FM and those who have the authority to implement/interpret should match. The mess is due to the mismatch.
In judiciary, it is said, nobody is guilty until proved as guilty; but contrary elsewehre.!
sir
Truthful articles, it is essential for common business man and Tax payers in India.
This not only disturb income tax Matters and also all tax regimes (Service tax and VAT)
A bold and eye opener for the entire “community”. What the board members were doing is a big question mark? I hope they were busy in re launching the income tax WEB site.or in opening the ASK. I had written in these coloums only to scrap the CBDT. Any letter addressed to CBDT is not answered. The officers can act as they want and it is not punishable, but if the assessee makes a mistake even with out any intention he will be KILLED by the department, that too only to small tax payers, all the big tax offenders will safely stand in the CBDT umbrella.If 500/- TDS not paid or TDS retuns are not filed in time he will be penalized and prosecution notice is sent but if Rs.500/= crore TDS is not paid he will be honoured.This is INDIA MAKE IN INDIA.WE ARE NOT SEEING AY DIFFERENCE IN THE CONGRESS OR BJP.
Fully endorse this. Small and medium businesses have to struggle to meet the numerous long winding government rules -I have experienced that more that 35% of a SME business time (which of course costs money) is spent in only meeting the unproductive government ever changing regulations ! Why cant it be streamlined considering the vast resources of the government. It is a clear case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. The bureaucrats are just introducing new ideas to save their seats and haggle premium postings ! Sincerely feel that their numbers should be cut to size and they should be made more accountable.
Very good and factual article by Mr.Tejas. I think all concerned / readers should appreciate this.Point No. 7 is worth re-reading.
Modi government seems to make a big mistake giving powers to bureaucrats who feel they are real ministers.
To harass and create fear in people are in their nerves. they are not aware of ground reality and issue orders / notifications sitting in their AC offices without applying logic. Reason : They are not accountable for whatever mischief they do.The author of the article has genuinely raised an issue.
There are many example of bureaucrat’s efficiency.Ministers are just signing documents.Few of them are :
See the condition of PSU banks : they are burdened with increasing NPAs.
See the conditions of other PSUs : government (public money) is infusing billions of money every year but still they are incurring huge losses. There is no accountability.
Their’s main focus is to anyhow increase revenue making impractical laws.They are blind to businessmen’s / public’s suffering bred by such laws and take people’s silence as consent.
They compare India’s tax rate with developed countries saying, in india it is minimum but do not talk of worst level of infrastructure and favourable business sentiments which does not rank even in first 100.
They make laws to charge interest at 15% from tax payers but pay only 6% on refunds. Why such loot ?
They charge 2 and 1% cess and make all tax payers to show it separately in all documents involving lot of paper complications. Don’t They know to bifurcate at their end ?.They like harassing businessmen and keep them in stress.
They make laws that if TDS is not paid by deductor or there is error in TDS return, the assessee will not be allowed TDS credit.
They make laws that if Dividend distribution tax is not paid by company, it will be recovered from the assessee / beneficiary.
They make laws that if seller collects VAT / taxes from buyer but does not pay to government,it will be recovered from the Buyer.
They make laws giving retrospective effects. Tax payers should not wonder if laws are made to increase Income tax to 40% and effects are given from a decade back (2001).
We are having notional freedom which is not a freedom but slavery only.
I request that above submission should also be taken in right perspective and spirit as author stated at the end.