More than 14 months after the Union Cabinet had approved the cadre restructuring of the Income Tax Department in May last year, 1,349 Group A posts, which include key posts like Chief Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners (who are responsible for handling all big tax assesses of the country), have been lying vacant. The delay has seriously affected the income tax collection targets of the Government.
The sorry state of affairs can be further gauged from the fact that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex body of the department, itself is currently functioning with only two members (excluding the Chairperson). Also out of the total 26 posts of Principal Chief Commissioners of Income Tax (PCCITs) across the country, only 10 are filled up and within the next three months, this number is going to fall to seven with three more PCCITs set to retire by November.
The main aim behind initiating the cadre restructuring of the Income Tax Department was to enhance revenue generation across the country, as by re-jigging posts across Groups A, B and C of the department, more than 20,000 new posts were created. In numerical terms, sources point out that with the creation of greater number of assessment units, the Government had envisaged that it would be able to collect Rs 25,000 crore per annum of additional revenue, which would be over and above the normal annual targets.
The current situation, however, is that while posts falling within Groups B and C have broadly been filled up (totaling 19,402), the 1,349 posts of Group A are yet to be filled up. The aforementioned posts of PCCITs, Joint Commissioners, as well as Deputy and Assistant Commissioners of Income Tax, fall under Group A category.
Sources privy to the development state that as the top slots in the higher echelons of the tax department hierarchy are vacant (namely CBDT and posts of PCCITs), it has seriously hampered the full fledged implementation of the cadre restructuring exercise.
The change of guard at the Centre, too, has not helped the cause of the key department, as the last interaction between the income tax officials and the Finance Ministry had taken place in October 2013 when P Chidambaram was at the helm. Owing to the new dispensation having taken charge of North Block since May this year, sources pointed out that the gestation period being taken by the new regime (led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley) has further delayed the process.
"While the promises made by Chidambaram towards speedy implementation of the cadre restructuring exercise got sidelined as the UPA Government got busy with lok Sabha elections, we have not got an opportunity to interact with the new Finance Minister," an official on condition of anonymity told The Pioneer.
Income Tax Gazetted Officers' Association (ITGOA), the nodal body of the officials of the department, which is at the forefront of taking up the matter with the Finance Ministry, claims that due to the delay, the cadre of Income Tax Officers, which is the feeder cadre of Assistant Commissioner grade (which is responsible for collecting more than 80 per cent of regular tax collection) has been stagnating without promotions since 2001 (when the last restructuring exercise had taken place).
Significantly more than 450 slots of Assistant Commissioners are vacant out of the sanctioned strength of 2,300. With this grade responsible for all the field work related to tax collection of higher income group assesses, vacancies among its cadre has impeded tax collection.
As a result, the morale of this critical work force is down and this, coupled with the delay in filling up the newly created posts, has resulted in the Government downwardly revising the actual income tax collection target for the current fiscal in the Union Budget (leave aside the additional Rs 25,000 crore target envisaged by it post completion of cadre restructuring), sources pointed out.