How many masters can they serve?

Former Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) R Prasad has realised that "income tax law has to be made simple and the income tax department should be a service provider". Tax officers assume that every taxpayer is a cheat and are told that "when two views are possible, err for the benefit of revenue". In short, resort to arm-twisting and extortion. Officers are set tax collection targets. "When 90% of collection comes from advanced tax and TDS, 5% from self-assessment collections and only 5% from post-assessment collections, there is no necessity to allot collection targets to individual officers." When 95% of tax collections come from self-assessment and advanced tax, which means people paying voluntarily, why are we treated as criminals? TDS, or tax deduction at source, collects taxes from salaries and any income earned from investments, like term deposits at banks. People are meant to claim refunds for excess tax deductions. Last year, the tax department had to refund Rs 1.42 trillion, of which 92% were for sums less than Rs 50,000. Those, especially old people, who forget to claim a refund or claim less than they should, lose money. Thus, the government is deliberately stealing money from the most vulnerable section of taxpayers and employing an army of officers at exorbitant salaries to do so. Charming. "There are cases where such excessive demands are raised that taxpayers are not able to pay 20% of the demand. This leads to harassment in the form of attachment of bank accounts and properties. When the taxpayer wins in appeal, the files in respect of attachment are misplaced and taxpayers suffer more harassment." The tax department is the largest litigant in India and persists in filing frivolous appeals despite losing the vast majority of cases. Wasting taxpayer money to harass taxpayers, wasting vast sums in lawyers' fees and creating logjams in courts. There are other ways of coercing taxpayers. Anyone paying more than Rs 50,000 per month in rent is required to deduct 5% TDS, deposit it with tax authorities and provide a certificate, called Form 16C, to the landlord. Similarly, anyone selling a property for more than Rs 5 million has to deduct 1% TDS and go through the same process of providing a certificate to the seller. In short, we are forced to serve the government without getting anything in return. Over 50 million have filed tax returns this year, compared to 31 million last year. Whether the increase is due to the jump in salaries of civil servants because of the Seventh Pay Commission we are not told. Tax officials follow rules laid down by politicians and their promotions depend on their ability to coerce taxpayers. Prasad thinks that "income tax law has to be made simple and the income tax department should be a service provider". But, it is already a service provider -- for politicians.