I-T staff union registers protest against faceless forward move

Mumbai: The government has launched faceless forward move, towards the direction of attaining excellence, transparency and more so is bound to be a taxpayer-friendly procedure. However, it was conceived, evolved, announced and sought to be implemented without causing consultation with many stake holders, especially the personnel, who are charged with the task of implementing it, feel the staff unions of the department, who had gone on a half-day strike across the offices on February 25 to register their protest against the government's move.

This sudden declaration with a surprise element even to the employees and middle management level officers of the department has only gone to convey the impression that 'all is not well'. After rolling out the schemes like Faceless Assessment and Faceless Appeal, the Department is now trying to wind up the offices in Districts or Tier-II/III Towns, especially those taken on rent, citing cost cutting and online compliances, says Ravindran B Nair, president, Income Tax Employees Federation (ITEF).

The authority seems to be oblivious to the need of the presence of the Department at smaller cities/towns. This is bound to hit the quality taxpayer services as well as confidence building measures/winning trust of common taxpayers, especially individuals and small businesses. As the progressive expenses for running the department over the last 3 years is actually on the decline that cannot be attributed to be the reason to close down offices in small town and district headquarters, he argued.

The continuously increasing tax collection, Nair goes on, over the years despite the decreasing rate of taxation is reflective of the success story and proves inter alia that the Laffer curve phenomenon in certain given situation is right.