It is common experience that Assessing Officers have the tendency to make huge additions and disallowances on frivolous grounds and raise huge tax demands. Coercive measures are adopted to recover the said demands. This causes immense hardship to honest taxpayers.

There are two reasons for the modus operandi of the Assessing Officers. The first is that the CBDT has/ had a policy of rewarding officers with plum postings and promotions based on the tax collected by them (see Collect Taxes; Get Promotion & Choice Posting: CBDT Chief). The second is that some unscrupulous officers get an excuse to demand bribes from the taxpayers (see Chief CIT Used Strong-Arm Techniques To Extort Bribe From Hapless Taxpayers: CBI Report).

The Ministry of Finance has issued a Notification dated 29.10.2015 in which it is stated that where the variation between the arm’s length price determined under section 92C and the price at which the international transaction or specified domestic transaction has actually been undertaken does not exceed one percent of the latter in respect of wholesale trading and three percent of the latter in all other cases, the price at which the international transaction or specified domestic transaction has actually been undertaken shall be deemed to be the arm’s length price for Assessment Year 2015-2016

On an earlier occasion, the CBDT had issued Instruction in F. No. 500/98/2015-FT&TR-V dated 14th August, 2015 in which it had lamented the fact of poor representation on behalf of the department in the cases before the Authority of Advance Rulings. It had issued instructions that only senior officials who are well prepared on facts and law should be deputed so as to effectively represent the Departmental view on complex issues. The CBDT has now issued another Instruction F.No.225/261/2015/ITA.II dated 28.10.2015 in which it has taken exception to the fact that:

(i) Departmental Representatives are seeking adjournment on unjustified grounds;

(ii) Departmental Representatives not committing to a particular position on the ground of seeking further instructions from the field authorities;

(iii) All the questions raised in an application not properly responded to, while furnishing the report.

In order to deal with the malaise, the CBDT has issued clear-cut directions and warned that the said directions should be followed strictly.

Aayakar Sampark Kendra (ASK) is one of the initiatives of the Income Tax Department to provide Taxpayer Information and Services to the taxpayers across the country. At present five call centers of Aayakar Sampark Kendra (One NCC at Gurgaon and four RCCs at Jammu, Jangipur, Kochi and Shillong) are functioning to answer queries related to the status of PAN & TAN applications, procedure of filing of Income tax & Wealth tax returns, downloading of calls and other general queries. Taxpayers have also been provided a facility to register grievances through email through the call centers of ASK