Hyderabad: Commercial taxes officials and staff are up in arms against the CID sleuths, accusing them of highhandedness under the pretext of investigation the commercial taxes scam that came to light in Bodhan two months ago.
TS Commercial Taxes Gazetted Officers’ Association on Thursday met commercial taxes commissioner V. Anil Kumar and lodged a protest over the highhandedness of the CID sleuths and condemned the recent arrests of officers and staff by the CID.
“The highhandedness of the CID has hurt the morale of the officials and staff in the department. Our department remains the major contributor to the state exchequer. There is a lot of pressure to meet the revenue targets due to limited staff and we are working in hostile conditions. In the course of discharging our duties, some errors may occur, which should not be viewed as criminal acts. We are against corruption or irregularities of any kind but the department should first conduct inquiry to bring out the facts instead of handing over the case directly to the police,” said T. Venkateshwarlu, president, TCTGOA.
He said the VAT platform by itself was faulty due to which there were chances of errors occurring during tax collections.
“Even after 12 years since VAT was launched, several loopholes in the system remain. The fact that every year VAT platform is being updated shows it is not perfect. For this reason, it is being scrapped and the government is bringing GST. The investigation officials should also look into these aspects,” Mr Venkateshwarlu said.
He urged the government to stop the CID highhandedness as it would only impact the functioning of officials and staff at this stage when the department was gearing up for the rollout of GST.
“Let the commercial taxes department conducts departmental inquiry first against allegations of tax scam in Bodhan. If prima facie any irregularity is found, there is no objection in handing over the case to police. But creating panic among officials and staff with CID arrests will only adversely impact the functioning of department and create problems for GST rollout,” he said.
