Dismal performance by local panels of Income Tax officials, says CBDT

NEW DELHI: The CBDT chairperson, in his letter, said the performance of local committees of senior ITD officials in the last three years “has not been found to be satisfactory”. Citing examples, Chandra pointed out that last year (2016-17), the reports filed by the regions after prodding from the CBDT were found to be either deficient or incomplete.

“For 2017-18, not a single report of local committees from any of the regions has been received by the board,” the chairman said, adding that he had received “personal feedback” that these committees are either vacant at many locations due to transfer or promotion of a member or meetings were not being held regularly.

“You would appreciate that all these deficiencies in functioning of local committees are hampering their effectiveness in tackling high-pitched assessments in an institutional manner,” he said.

Asking regional ITD chiefs to give due attention to “monitor performance of local committees on a regular basis so that these serve as a useful mechanism to curb high-pitched assessments in the ITD”, Chandra said that in cases where such assessments are found, an explanation should be sought from the assessing officer. In select cases, the official should be transferred to a non-sensitive post and disciplinary action initiated against him/her.

“No coercive action should be taken for recovery of demand in cases which have been identified as high-pitched by the local committee,” the chairman said.

The CBDT chief also directed that a compliance report on these cases should be sent to the board every three months and a publicity campaign should be undertaken so that taxpayers know that this mechanism can be used to get their grievance redressed, if they are not happy or feel that their tax assessment is not fair.