61st Independence day of emerging India

We salute Indian National Flag on the occasion of 60 years of our independence.

Yesterday, we have celebrated 60 years of Indian independence. This freedom is a result of a relentless struggle made by our freedom fighters. We could learn a lot from them, especially from our Bapu or Father of the Indian Nation, Mahatma Gandhi or Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi, as depicted in our recent Hindi film "Lage Raho Munnabai" as Gandhigiri.

I celebrated this 61st independence day in our new Income Tax Towers, AC Guards, Lakdikapul, Hyderabad at 8:45 am. The following is the gist of the speech made by our Chief Commissioner of Income Tax-I, Sri D.V. Dharmik, IRS on this occasion.

"We have come a long way since our independence in 1947. As the nation has grown, our Income Tax Department has also grwon along with it. From a modest contribution of Rs. 100 crores by Direct Taxes to our exchequer, presently we are contributing Rs. 2,30,000 crores to our exchequer. For the current fiscal, the government has fixed a target for direct taxes at Rs. 2,67,00 crores, we are confident that we may reach Rs. 3,00,000 crores in this fiscal. With time, the proportion of direct taxes in the overall tax revenue to the government had a see change. As with any other country, the proportion of direct taxes increases with the development of that country. This is a good sign as direct taxes are progressive where as the indirect taxes are regressive, meaning thereby the burden on account of indirect taxes is borne by all independent of their economic status whereas direct taxes are paid in proportion to the economic ability of a person. The contribution of direct taxes has gone up from 5% of total tax revenues at the time of independence to 50% during the last fiscal.

The face of the department has also seen many changes - from high tax rates in the early sixties to the present moderate tax rates, from complete 100% scrutiny of all returns filed to selection of scrutiny of files based on the information and/or criteria. We have made many tax payer friendly measures and used our slogans for these changes like "we trust you, you trust us", "pay your taxes, hold your head high", "pay tax and relax" etc. indicating the change in approach of our department towards tax payers. With the e-filing and refund banks in place, we hope the interaction between the department and tax payer will reduce.

Even the infrastructure in the Income Tax Department has improved a lot. Presently we have very good infrastructure like our new office building known as I.T. Towers at AC Guards with centralised AC, modular work stations with a corporate look. The Government is also recognising the increased role of Direct Taxes in the Nation's economic well being. Finance Minister, Sri P Chidambaram on his inaugural speech at IT Towers said that direct taxes is the future . He lauded the efforts of our department and also said that sufficient funds will be given for improving the infrastructure in the Department".