New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked tax officials to remove the fear of harassment from the minds of taxpayers and focus on the five pillars of administration -- revenue, accountability, probity, information and digitisation (RAPID).
Inaugurating the two-day Rajasva Gyan Sangam here, the Prime Minister asked officials to "move towards digitisation" in a bid to make tax administration better and efficient and to work towards bridging the "trust deficit".
Modi also suggested that officials should endeavour to remove "fear of harassment" from the minds of assessees and emphasised that their behaviour should be "soft and sober", Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said while briefing reporters about the meeting.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and senior tax administrators of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) are participating in the two-day annual conference.
Modi also underlined the need for increasing the number of tax payers to 10 crore from 5.43 crore, at present.
Stating that revenue department officials already know where the problem lies with regard to tax collection, Modi said after the two-day 'Gyan Sangam', the field officers should convert it to 'Karma Sangam' so that ideas generated could lead to concrete actions on the ground.
Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said the Prime Minister asked tax officials to build a "bridge of confidence" between tax payers and tax officials so that they pay taxes without fear or harassment.
He said tax officials should act like "mentors of taxpayers" and not treat them as "tax evaders".
"People of India are inherently honest. If you build trust then people will pay taxes and you will be able to achieve the target," Modi said.
Modi said while there should be respect for the rule of law among all citizens and fear of the long arm of the law for those who evade taxes, people should certainly not fear tax administrators.
During an hour-long interaction with officials, Modi also underlined the need for tax administrators to instill trust in the system so that the tax base could be enhanced.
A suggestion from officers were to bring a "tax facilitation act" which would have rules for dealing with tax payers. They also raised the issue of voluntary tax compliance, increasing tax base, upgradation of digital and physical infrastructure for tax administrators.
Sinha said the Prime Minister laid out certain goals and objectives for officials to increase the tax base to 10 crore from 5.43 crore at present.
Sinha said of the 25 crore households in the country, 15 crore are agriculturalists and hence the remaining 10 crore should be under the tax net.
Modi in his speech said 92 per cent of tax department revenue comes from TDS, advance tax and self assessment tax, while the remaining 8 per cent comes after scrutiny. He said if 42,000 officials of CBDT are engaged for ensuring direct tax revenue, then the tax net should increase further.
Stating the country is filled with "aspirational people", Modi urged taxmen to take steps so that people find it easier to pay taxes here.
During the interaction, Modi said if someone Googles 'how to pay taxes in India', there would be seven crore results. If the question of 'how not to pay taxes in India' is put to Google, the number would be 12 crore.
Modi, however, emphasised that people in India mostly pay taxes and the number of people who want to evade it is less. "People don't have a problem in paying tax. So there is no question of tax evasion. The issue is how cooperative are we in dealing with people. He said you should behave like mentors with the people rather than evader... If you become taxpayer friendly, then taxes will automatically come to you," Modi said.
Prime Minister also suggested tax officials should focus on simplification so the two-day brainstorming sessions could lead to better outcome with regard to tax payer services. CBDT Chairman Atulesh Jindal said the department will take steps to bridge the trust deficit with tax payers.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while addressing the tax officers also suggested that the departments should move towards digitisation.
