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Our Mission
To
promote Compliance with our direct tax laws, through caring taxpayer
service and strict enforcement, and thus realize maximum resources
for the Nation.
Our
Values
- Integrity
of conduct,
- Dedication
to our duties and values,
- Professionalism
in our work,
- Attitude
of service to our clients and
- Fostering
mutual confidence.
Our
Global Vision
The
Department will be recognized as a professional organization, collecting
resources efficiently, considerate towards its clients, adapting
and improving and promoting voluntary compliance.
This
would be achieved through
- Professional
excellence and high ethical standards of its personnel,
- Strict
and fair enforcement,
- Simplification
of tax laws and procedures,
- Client
assistance programmes and
- Modernization
initiatives.
Our
Overall Strategy
Overall,
as an organization, we aspire to adapt and improve.
Outdated
practices, procedures, systems and attitudes have to change, or
be replaced by new ones. Modernization and change will characterize
our efforts over the next five years.
Sectors,
considered crucial, have been selected for special focus. Change
initiatives in these sectors are expected to bring about desired
improvements in the Department. These sectors are:
- Human
Resource Development
- Enforcement
- Simplification
& Client Assistance.
- Modernization.
Sectoral
strategies are available in the pages that follow.
Human
Resource Development
Our
Goal
A motivated
workforce, professional in work, discerning, helpful to clients.
Our
Vision
Professional
excellence and high ethical standards of Departmental personnel
will lead to its being recognized as a helpful organization, manned
by proficient functionaries, who work to serve, with probity, and
thus promote mutual confidence.
The
areas that will receive special attention are:
- Adequacy
of manpower, with assured career progression.
- Improved
housing, office accommodation and other infrastructural facilities.
- Improved
and intensified training in
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Work methods and technologies,
- Professional
behaviour and
- Modern
management methods.
- Accountability
at all levels and recognition of good work.
- Introducing
job enrichment, job enlargement and job rotation schemes.
- Providing
stress-free work environment.
- Zero
tolerance of breach of integrity.
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OBJECTIVES
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KEY
RESULTS
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To rightsize the Department, with assured minimum career progression
for all officers and staff.
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Completion
of such exercise by 2001.
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To
provide adequate governmental residential and office accommodation,
and to improve other infrastructural facilities.
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Making
this an ongoing exercise.
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To
make training more need-based and user-led with greater stress
on behavioural training.
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Adopting
and implementing a purposive Systems Approach based training
policy in 2000.
Setting
up systems to deliver customized training as and when needed,
through more distance, on-the-job, audio-visual and computer-aided
training schemes by 2002.
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To
inculcate high computer literacy in officers and staff.
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Expanding
computer training and coaching including “hands-on” experience
gathering and computer orientation by 2000.
Recruiting
computer-savvy personnel only by 2001.
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To
introduce greater accountability at all levels.
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Defining
jobs and assigning responsibilities for the same, along with
accountability by 2002.
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To
consider schemes for recognition of good work.
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Consider
formulating such schemes by 2001.
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To
consider introducing job rotation, job enrichment and job
enlargement.
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Setting
up a committee for this purpose by 2001.
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ENFORCEMENT
Our
Goal
Combating
evasion and Winning voluntary compliance.
Our
Vision
Strict
and fair enforcement will lead to the Department being perceived
as an organization of acknowledged integrity, effective and efficient,
just and fair, transparent and communicative, firm on evaders and
benign on the compliant .
Enforcement
is our raison d’etre. It embraces the gamut of acts from compelling
observance of the laws to stimulating voluntary compliance, from
coercion to facilitation. We seek to be effective in both. The
Department, too, has statutory duties to discharge; this will receive
significantly more attention than before. “Not a pie more, not
a pie less” will be our maxim.
The
growth trend of taxpayer population is straining the investigative
reach of the Department. So now, the anachronistic methodology
of individual, mostly “armchair”, initiatives will give way to an
organization-wide “system” based mainly on
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intelligence gathering,
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inter-intelligence agency liaisoning,
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honing of investigative skills,
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mobility to investigators and
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selective scrutiny.
Alongside
will begin a forceful initiative towards client facilitation.
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OBJECTIVES
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KEY
RESULTS
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To
ensure compliance by taxpayers.
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Making
on-line allotment of PAN functional in major cities by 2001.
Starting
processing of returns on computers by 2000.
Starting
computerized monitoring of filing returns and pursing-cases
of stop-filers and non-filers by 2001.
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To
strengthen scrutiny assessments
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Revamping
procedures of collecting information through Central Information
Branch (CIB) and also otherwise by 2001.
Starting
to create computerized databases of commercial and monetary
intelligence by 2000.
Creating
mechanism for assessee-wise transaction databases, including
countrywide computerized TDS networking by 2001.
Starting
to use computer software for criteria-based selection of
cases for scrutiny, by 2001.
Introducing
mobile outfits by 2001.
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To
strengthen intelligence sharing and exchange.
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Reengineering
business processes for better coordination among enforcement
agencies, by 2001.
Setting
up revenue posts abroad by transnational information and
investigation, by 2002.
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To
improve statutory compliance by the Department.
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Creating
a culture of acknowledging statutory communications by 2001.
Significantly
speeding up refunds, appeal effects and rectifications by
2001.
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SIMPLIFICATION CLIENT ASSISTANCE
Our
Goal
Easier
Compliance
Our
Vision
Simplification
of tax laws and procedures and client assistance programmes will
cause the Department to be seen as a thinking organization, that
strives to simplify and speed up processes, and ease procedural
burdens and seeks to educate, guide and assist its clients.
We
believe that the delinquent among our clients are not many. The
majority wish to comply with the laws, only, they want such compliance
to be made easy, simple and hassle-free. That is why we see ourselves,
more and more, in the role of a facilitator.
Knowing
that, at present, tax compliance is a worrisome exercise for many
taxpayers, we have formulated definite measures to increasingly
ease such worry. The important ones are the following:
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Getting the direct tax laws and rules simplified and rationalized.
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Making business processes less complex, inducting computerized
data processing
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Setting up mechanism to educate, guide, inform and help our clients.
A taxpayer-friendly
regime is what we want to herald.
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OBJECTIVES
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KEY
RESULTS
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To
simplify and rationalize the laws and rules.
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Initiating
law simplification exercises, by 2001.
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To
monitor the impact, and judicial interpretation, of statutes.
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Setting
up systems for speedy and continuous monitoring of appellate
orders, by 2000.
Strengthening
Research & Statistics unit attached to Central Board of
Direct Taxes by 2000.
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To
speed up appellate processing.
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Reducing
Departmental litigation at all levels, by 2001.
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To
improve Client Education and assistance.
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Adopting
lecture, workshop, audio-visual and computerized multimedia
methods for regular client education and assistance, by 2001.
Setting
up a committee to consider establishing “Help Offices” run
by direct tax conversant persons, like retired Departmental
officers by 2001.
Setting
up national and regional Departmental internet web-sites,
and e-mail addresses by 2001.
Revamping
and expanding Public Relations offices and improving Facilitation
Counters by 2000.
Installing
telephonic Interactive Voice Response systems at major stations
by 2001.
Instituting
posts in Indian Embassies and Missions abroad to inform and
guide NRIs and foreign investors on matters relating to taxation
and investments in India by 2001.
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MODERNIZATION
Our
Goal
Adaptation
and improvement
Our
Vision
Modernization
initiatives will cause the Department to be regarded as a progressive
and proactive organization that copes with increasing volumes of
work and challenges of changing times, with innovation and imagination,
and advanced technologies.
Tax
taxpayer population has been growing fast, exponentially, pressing
its won logic upon us, of the imperative to change and modernize
the administration. Adaptation and improvement will, therefore,
mark our initiatives over the next half decade, in the work we do
and the way we do it.
A paradigm
shift has been programmed, because old edifices of antiquated practices
are giving way. In particular:
- The
mindset that seeks to bring every taxpayer to book will yield
to a culture of trust and helpfulness;
- The
archaic register-based system of maintaining records and accounts
manually will be replaced by computerized database management
information systems;
- Routine
processing of returns will be computerized; and
- Management
of physical records, like files, will be overhauled.
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OBJECTIVES
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KEY
RESULTS
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To
have requisite autonomy and financial freedom as an organization.
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Enhancing
financial autonomy of CBDT to adequate level, by 2001.
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To
modernize business processes and enhance bulk-handling capacity.
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Completing
talks with personnel on computerization, by mid – 2000.
Formulating
and publicizing new work procedures, including new records
management and computerized return processing procedures by
early – 2001.
Starting
computerized pilots in Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) by 2000.
Starting
data capture from income-tax returns proper by 2001.
Having
model offices in each Commissioner of Income-tax (CIT) charge
by 2002.
Having
modern visitors’ waiting halls in every office by 2002.
Identifying
and eliminating avoidable expenditure and thus optimizing
cost of collection.
Efficiently
handing something like 5 crore returns yearly, by 2005.
Operationalizing
Assessee Information System (AIS), Individual Running Ledger
Account (IRLA), Assessment Information System (AST) and other
important application software by 2001.
Introducing
electronic fund transfer (EFT) for tax payments and refunds
by 2001.
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To
restructure work outfits to suit changed work requirements.
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Restructuring
work-groups and echelons as needed by 2001.
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To
undertake new initiatives in keeping with the times and for
better client service.
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Starting
initiatives in e-commerce, computerized accounts, electronic
return filing, electronic data Interchange (EDI), filing of
TDS annual returns on magnetic media, and computer connectivity
among enforcement agencies and banks by 2001.
Starting
pilots in door-step services, like delivering return forms
to taxpayers per mail by 2002.
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To
bring tax compliance awareness among citizens.
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Starting
campaign among high school and college students on the need
and benefits of tax compliance by 2001.
Starting
schemes to formally involve school children in programmes
to promote awareness of fiscal obligation among the citizenry
by 2001.
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