Income Tax Raid to be conducted only after furnishing the Contact Details of the Boss

This may sound strange but the fact of the matter is that CBDT has released a Circular which mandates the Officer conducting an Income Tax Raid to furnish the contact details of his senior before conducting the Raid.

While releasing this Circular, Sudhir Chandra, the Chairman of CBDT said that this circular has been released to bring transparency in Survey Operations and obviate the possibility of any grievance to the Tax Payer. Such a step has been taken to do away with any Grievance related to Harassment or Corruption by the Income Tax Officials under the garb of such operations.

The order has been issued for ”Survey” operations of the department which are carried out under section 133A of the I-T Act under which the I-T department officials can enter a business premise and can inspect account books and financial statements, verify the cash, stock or other valuable articles, record the statement of any individual but cannot make any seizures.

The Circular dated 27^th May 2011 said that: –

1. Survey teams visiting taxpayer’s premises under the provisions of Section 133 A of the Income Tax Act will, before the commencement of  survey proceedings, provide to the taxpayer the names, designations & contact numbers of their Chief Commissioner, Commissioner &Additional/ Joint   Commissioner of Income Tax.
2. Inform the taxpayer that in case of any grievance or otherwise, he is free to contact Chief Commissioner /Commissioner /Additional Commissioner/Joint Commissioner of Income Tax.

In order to give effect to the above instruction, survey parties will invariably carry in their survey kit names, designations & contact numbers of their Chief Commissioner  / Commissioner / Additional Commissioner / Joint Commissioner of Income  Tax in the following Performa, on which, as a proof of implementation of above directions, signature of the taxpayer surveyed would be obtained. The said performa, duly signed by the taxpayer, would be submitted back to the Commissioner of Income Tax, to be preserved as permanent record.