The Life of a Revenue Officer is shrouded in mystery in a way. Unlike his counterparts in other services, there is little known about his work, interactions in the line of duty and the service that he renders to the nation.
Many a times, instead of glory, the tax man ends up receiving flak for the work he does for the nation i.e mobilizing revenue for the state. This, despite the fact that taxation is the spine upon which the country stands with its head held high.
Limitations of an I.R.S Officer to Share his Work: The Principle Behind It
Unlike Officers of I.A.S or I.P.S who post photos of the work being done by them, you will find very few I.R.S Officers gloating their work in social media. The I.R.S officers, by the very design of the department, are restricted in many senses from projecting their work for individual glory. I believe that this actually stems from a very ancient principle with regard to taxation that Chanakya, the father of Indian Statecraft, put forth:
“The Ruler should act like a bee which collects honey (Tax) without causing pain to the plant.” said Chanakya.
He further elaborated
“Just as one plucks fruits from a garden as they ripen, so shall a king have the revenue collected as it becomes due. Just as one does not collect unripe fruits, he shall avoid taking tax that is not due because that will make the people angry and spoil the very sources of revenue”
In fact modern tax administrations also follow the same policy. This might be the reasons why tax departments across the world talk more about exemptions and deductions and extensions more than the tax rates and taxes involved. If the Tax departments were to allow individual officers to project the work that is done by them in the public domain without restraint, then it would simply violate the cardinal principle as said above. People might perceive the work being done by the income tax department as tax terrorism. This is despite the fact that the tax man would be just doing is duty, i.e making sure that the tax that is due to the state is collected without any evasion.
This is one reason why the income tax department has a Commissioner Level Officer in charge of Media & Technical Policy, who is also the official spokesperson of CBDT. Any work worth publishing is only publicized through this office. Which is also the reason why you don’t see I.R.S officers post pictures of the person who they are raiding or the hoard of cash they have found.
Another important reason is privacy. This is one place where Income Tax Department strikes the right note. Many a times, you see police department posting pictures of accused caught with drugs, or some other crime that they have been accused of. This is a regular feature in many news papers. However, the law of our land is very clear on one thing: No one is guilty until proven otherwise. These kind of publicity stunts result in the accused being denied their right to privacy until proven guilty by a court of law. By the time the verdict comes, the person even if he were innocent, is branded guilty by the society.
Income Tax department in that sense makes sure that no picture of the premise in which the search operation or any other action for that matter occurs is posted in a public space. Thus the I.R.S and the service it offers is many a times not seen by the public.
If you can’t talk about it, what is this space about then?
I intend to just bring out the aspects of I.R.S that can be publicly spoken about and are publicly available. Where the matter is private or barred to be spoken in public, Ill be tight lipped and just speak the facts/information available publicly. You can decide to do the investigation on it, and come to your conclusions, as per your free time :)
All Views Personal/ All information taken from public Domain
No departmental information will be used in this space except what is available in public. Experiences that I have had which can be talked about might also be written about. All views in this space will be personal and that of the author and in no way that of the government or the income tax department.
How frequently will you write?
I do not how frequently this can be done. But I hope that atleast one post per week can be done :|
Come! Let’s demystify the TaxMan!