Welcome to the silly season! It’s summer/spring time love is in the air and yes, corruption too, because it’s Income Tax time. It’s bad enough paying tax, but when you have to pay a bribe for getting your tax refund, that really makes you feel lousy.
First, the good news. Most of you won’t have to pay bribes, because the IT department has taken whole heartedly to information technology. Earlier, income tax babus were notorious for extracting bribes for releasing refund cheques. If you didn’t pay up, they would send it out very late, so that by the time you got it, the cheque would have already expired! In other words, they made asses of assesses.
The government changed the system, from January 2007 onwards. First, they introduced the Refund Banker Scheme, under which refunds were directly sent to assesses’ bank accounts. Starting 2008, the IT department set up a Central Processing Centre (CPC) in Bangalore, where all returns are sent for automatic processing. Then the system of e-returns was introduced. Since 2010, all corporates, firms and other assesses who have to get accounts audited shall have to compulsorily file e-returns. Individuals can also file e-returns, though it’s not compulsory. Anyway, whether you file returns on the net or on paper, all of them are sent to the CPC which automatically processes them. These chaps are good – they process something like 1 ½ lakh returns every day!
Once the return is processed and a refund is due to you, currently the CPC sends the money directly to your bank account, if you have provided details earlier. You can view the status of your refund 10 days after it has been sent to the Refund Banker by the Assessing Officer; by entering your PAN and Assessment Year details in the following website: https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/oltas/refundstatuslogin.html
Now that’s wonderful; this is indeed something that must be celebrated! Corruption has been dramatically brought down, through the intervention of Information Technology.
But is everything squeaky clean? Ipaidabribe.com did a quick check to find out whether corruption still lurks in the IT department, and discovered that behind all the good reforms they have carried out, there is bad news.
What is the catch, you ask? At present, the CPC directly and automatically processes all refunds below Rs. 1 lakh. No human interface is involved. But all returns where refunds are more than Rs. 1 lakh are sent back to the assessing officers concerned, who then manually issue the refunds. No prizes for guessing what happens next, these officials take bribes! I am told the bribe is between Rs. 2000 to Rs. 4000 normally, but it could be much higher, depending upon how greedy the officer is.
Now why does the IT department send high value returns back to the assessing officers, when the CPC can easily process them too?
Ipaidabribe.com spoke to a senior officer in the government to find out why. He says that the IT department needs to check whether the assesse concerned has any previous dues pending, before they can release the refund. That sounds justified, but most businessmen say that this is only a ploy to delay sending the refund and to collect bribes.
How can the system be improved? In the long term, all returns should be automatically processed. But in the short term, the manual system has to disclose publicly where the return is lying. If you can track your return in the CPC office, then why should you not be able to track it in the office of the assessing officer?
So we recommend the following steps to the IT department
• The details of the returns sent back to the assessing officers, including the date on which these have been sent back, should be made public by the CPC.
• Following this, the assessing officers should also have a net-based tracking system that shows when they received the return and what its current status is.
• The IT department should also give details of all pending arrears or demands of tax to the CPC with periodic updates, so that these can be verified by the CPC itself and refunds are issued by them only after verification.
• Citizens should also be able to view their tax arrears online, just as they are able to follow their refund status online. That way, there will be full transparency and citizens can themselves take action to pay the arrears. It will be a win-win situation for the IT department and citizens too!
Now, to all of you out there, till then, please try to trap some of these corrupt IT officials and clerks. You can record their corrupt acts using a mobile phone. If somebody demands a bribe for you to get your return, get the details and report the case to the Central Vigilance Commission, athttp://www.vigeye.com/. They promise to investigate into the matter.
Complain to higher level officials. Improve your body language. Don’t be submissive, get angry and say enough is enough.
Till technology catches up, the answer lies with you. If you complain and dig in your heels, they cannot delay your refunds. So, please go ahead and ensure you don’t pay a bribe.
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