Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked tax officials to double the taxpayer base in the country and told them to put the fear of the law in the hearts of tax evaders but be “soft and sober” w
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked tax officials to double the taxpayer base in the country and told them to put the fear of the law in the hearts of tax evaders but be “soft and sober” with those who pay their taxes.
“There should be respect for the law among all citizens, and even fear of the long arm of the law for those who evade taxes,” Mr Modi said in his address to the inaugural session of the two-day annual conference of tax administrators here, titled Rajasva Gyan Sangam (Knowledge Conference on Revenue). He outlined a five-point charter for tax administrators with the acronym RAPID: R for revenue, A for accountability, P for probity, I for information and D for digitisation.
However, he stressed the need for tax administrators to engender trust in the system. Citing the example of the “Give it Up” initiative for people to voluntarily surrender their LPG gas subsidy, he said the tax base too can be increased significantly provided tax administrators can demonstrate the leadership to bring about change.
“People within the country are not dishonest. People have no problem in paying taxes, but somewhere they have some problem. Understand that problem and try to remove it,” said Mr Modi. Stating that people should not fear tax administrators, he asked the officials to build a “bridge of trust” in order to achieve tax collection targets without coercion.
The Prime Minister said a query on the search engine Google — “How to pay taxes in India” — throws up seven crore answers, but a query on “How not to pay taxes in India” gives out 12 crore results. The PM pointed out that the Income-Tax Department has 42,000 officers, yet only eight per cent of the revenue comes from scrutiny of returns. As much as 92 per cent of the direct tax revenue comes from tax deducted at source (TDS) of mostly salaried people, advance taxes and self-assessment taxes.
“You should behave like mentors to people rather than invaders. Don’t presume that everyone is a tax evader,” revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia quoted Mr Modi as saying.
