PM Modi asks Tax officials to be ‘Soft and Sober’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked the Tax Administrators to be soft and sober in their approach and not treat everybody as tax evaders, while addressing the inaugural session of the two-day annual conference of tax administrators in New Delhi.

Modi stressed that while there should be respect for the rule of law among all citizens, people should not fear tax administrators. He also said, the foundation of administration should be on five pillars of Revenue, Accountability, Probity, Information and Digitisation (RAPID).

More importantly, the Prime Minister set a target for the taxmen to double the taxpayer base to 10 crore from 5.43 crore now, and at the same time bridge the trust deficit between them and the taxpayers by removing fear of any harassment.

Highlighting shortcomings in the system, Modi said a query on search engine Google on ‘How to pay taxes in India’ throws up 7 crore answers, but a query on ‘How not to pay taxes in India’ gives out 12 crore results. He also said, the long arm of the law would definitely catch up with those evading taxes.

At the conference titled ‘Rajasva Gyan Sangam’ (Knowledge Conference on Revenue), Mr Modi asked the officials to move towards digitisation to make tax administration efficient and work towards bridging the trust deficit.

The two revenue collection arms of the central government, the CBDT and CBEC are jointly holding their annual brainstorming session.