The two days “Rajswa Gyansangam- Annual Conference of Tax Administrators-2016” concluded here yesterday. “Rajswa Gyansangam” was held in the national capital on 16th& 17th June,2016.It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in the morning on 16th June,2016 and marked a new height in the generation of innovative ideas and opened new frontiers for the tax administrators. The Prime Minister Shri Modi stressed that facilitation should be the core of the tax ecosystem and the fear of the law rather than the law enforcer should be the maxim on which tax administrators should work. While acknowledging the significant role of revenue collection in the growth and development of the country, he exalted the revenue officers to achieve high standards in taxpayer-friendly services towards compliant taxpayers. At the same time, the Prime Minister asked them to knock on the doors of the non-tax payers so as to increase the number of taxpayers. He asked the Income Tax Department to widen the tax base and take suitable action against the non-filers and tax evaders.
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi emphasized that “RAPID” (Revenue, Accountability, Probity, Information, Digitisation) should become the cornerstone of tax architecture.
Later, the Union Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley also interacted extensively with the officers of the two Boards during two separate Sessions on 16th June, 2016. He highlighted the fact that the Indian economy is in a transformational phase and emphasised the need to take advantage of the global changes that are reshaping the world economy. He further stressed that India is bound to become a major manufacturing hub of the world; in this regard, reforms such as “GST” and a modern non adversarial tax regimen are crucial to catapult the share of the manufacturing sector to 25% of GDP. The Minister of State for Finance, Shri Jayant Sinha delivered the valedictory address on the evening of 17th June, 2016.
A joint session of CBDT and CBEC was addressed by renowned novelist Chetan Bhagat on “Taxing with Love”. He suggested that the tax departments should treat the tax payers as its “customers” and a tax-paying culture should be inculcated in the country by honoring the top taxpayers. He also gave certain practical solutions for simplification of forms and user-friendly website.
Separate Technical sessions were held by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) & Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC). The Technical Sessions of CBDT over the two day period covered wide-ranging subjects like Tax Payer Services, New Initiatives in E- Governance, Exchange of Information with foreign jurisdictions, Investigation into Undisclosed Foreign Assets, Income Declaration Scheme 2016, Litigation Management & Dispute Resolution, Scheme for Paperless Assessments, Promoting Accountability & Service Orientation etc.
On the CBEC side, the deliberations covered subjects like analysis of revenue trends, update on GST, strategy to mitigate litigation, expansion of digital footprint, facilitation of trade, the impact of WTO TFA and standardization of processes and dissemination of knowledge to officers at the cutting edge.
The CBEC also conducted a taxpayer survey in association with FICCI/KPMG which was released. The survey brought-out several specific suggestions; significantly it also revealed that 72% of the respondents felt a perceptible change in the policies of CBEC.
A Panel discussion was conducted where Chairman, Quality Council of India Sh. Adil Zainulbhai, Ms. Rama Bijapurkar, Market Analyst and Ms.Shalini Narayan, Social media expert discussed the ways and means to improve the brand image of Customs and Excise Department, wherein the need for the department to “walk the talk” and engage with the stakeholders through use of social media was stressed.
The Conference was extremely productive. The take-aways from the Conference on the CBEC side are:-
On the CBDT side, the following action points were identified:
