Vice President, M. Venkaiah Naidu called for further simplifying the tax system to promote voluntary compliance and reduce litigation. Appreciating the government’s efforts to do away with complex and tedious processes, he called for intensifying the efforts toward creating a stable, user friendly and transparent tax regime in the country.
Addressing the Valediction Ceremony of the 74th Batch of Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) at National Academy of Direct Taxes (NADT) at Nagpur, he Vice observed that technology can be a great enabler in our endeavour toward creating a transparent and taxpayer-friendly administration.
“Leveraging digital technology is crucial for financial inclusion, ease of service delivery and plugging leakages from various welfare schemes,” he added.
Observing that the country expects a high order of efficiency and integrity from all civil servants, the Vice President asked the officers to set a high benchmark, improve the system to make a positive difference in the lives of people. “We are not content with the status quo. We want to convert our Swaraj into Suraj or good governance,” he stressed.
Terming effective tax administration as the bedrock of national development and one of the pillars of good governance, the Vice President underlined that tax collection needs to increase but it should be done in a transparent and user-friendly way, not in an arbitrary manner.
Stressing the need to minimise the adverse impact of taxation on taxpayers, he said, “if taxpayers continue to grow in their respective productive activities, both the national GDP and the revenue collections will continue to grow.” Referring to several tax reforms in recent years such as focus on litigation management to avoid repetitive appeals, Faceless Regime and adoption of the Taxpayers’ Charter, the Vice President complimented CBDT for ushering in these far-reaching policy measures. “I firmly believe that interaction between taxpayers and taxmen should be characterized by a spirit of trust, transparency and mutual respect,” he said.
