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President:     Col J N Pandey 

Solutions:

The following are some measures. Implementation of these measures will not only prevent the recurrence of these problems in future but also stop corruption in these areas for all times to come:

1.      The returns should be processed in strict chronological order on first-cum-first-served basis according to the return receipt numbers. No return should be allowed to be processed on out-of-turn basis. It is the Fundamental Right of a citizen to be treated equal before law. Processing anyone’s return out-of-turn violates this Fundamental Right of those taxpayers who filed their returns before him. Under no circumstances, whatsoever, any officer/ official should have the discretion to allow out-of-turn processing. An out-of-turn processing is done by an officer only due to one of the following reasons:

In both these cases, it amounts to misuse of official position. Hence, if there is any case of out-of-turn processing, it should be treated as a confirmed case of vigilance and disciplinary action should be taken against concerned officer without any enquiry.

2.    The return receipt number upto which refunds have been issued in each ward/ Circle/Special Range by the end of each month should be displayed on the website of the Department and also on the notice Boards of the Department. Through this, a taxpayer will come to know where he stands and he will not have to contact the concerned staff for this. If someone does not receive a refund, though according to the website, he should have received it, this matter should be investigated at the level of Commissioner of Income Tax and disciplinary action taken against the concerned officials within a month. The taxpayer should be issued refund within a week of such representation.

3.    The Finance Minister has announced implementation of electronic clearing of refunds in this budget. However, we feel that the final implementation of this would require an elaborate infrastructure and could take time. Pending that, the refunds should be credited directly to the bank account of the taxpayer through RBI. A similar system exists in Chennai, which has been appreciated by everyone. It should also be implemented in Delhi. This would do away with the problems of loss of refunds in postage, validity period, advice not sent etc.

4.    Citizens’ Charter :  The time limits mentioned in the Citizen’s Charter are quite liberal, for instance,

·        It hardly takes two hours to give appeal effect (other than set aside cases) but the Citizens’ Charter gives 30 days time for the same.

·        It hardly takes one hour to rectify an order u/s 154 but the Charter gives 30 days time for the same.

·        It  hardly takes half an hour to issue an ITCC u/s 230 and 230A but the Charter gives 7 days and 30 days time respectively for the same.

Despite such liberal time limits set in the Citizens’ Charter, in practice, they are seldom followed. This creates a situation wherein the staff is not accountable on any of these accounts. They do not do the work unless their palms are greased. We want that these time limits should be strictly enforced. If any officer does not adhere to any of these time limits, it should be treated as an automatic dereliction of duty and action should be taken against such officer accordingly. (Except in the case of set aside and partly set aside cases where it takes some months to give appeal effect)

5.    The Finance Minister has announced that PAN card would be issued within 30 days of application. We understand that the Department has some infrastructural problems in issuing PAN cards. But it takes a few minutes to allot a PAN to any taxpayer. We want that this time limit should be strictly enforced for allotment of PAN (not issue of cards) and any violation of the same should again be treated as an automatic dereliction of duty.

I have a refund problem    

Analysis of Problems        Citizen's Charter

Lets not pay bribes for income tax refunds                       

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