IRS Vs. IAS- The Real Heart Burn -Junior Vs. Senior

They (IRS) are worried of working under the junior IAS (not belonging to their cadre) AND NOT MERGED WITH THEIR CADRE AT ANY POINT. But very unfortunately, they are not worried about the officers recruited as Central Excise Inspector who are forced to work under the extreme junior of Customs named Examiner belonging to same cadre of Inspector in the same organisation of CBEC (merged at the level of Group 'A' entry) and also under the junior CSS officers. GREAT DOUBLE STANDARDS? Love. RAVI  Abolish Post of Revenue Secretary - TARC TIOL-DDT 2376 17.06.2014 Tuesday THE Government had in August 2013 constituted a Tax Administration Reform Commission TARC headed by Dr. Parthasarathy Shome and two former Members of the CBEC and CBDT as full time members and two former Chairmen of the two Boards as part time members. This predominantly IRS Commission has strongly recommended the abolition of the IAS post of Revenue Secretary - there was no IAS Member in the Commission. The Commission has submitted its first report - a voluminous 550 pages report as Government reports are perhaps destined to be. The Commission in its first report sought to review: 1. the existing organizational structure and recommend appropriate enhancements with special reference to deployment of workforce; 2. the existing business processes of tax administration including the use of information and communication technology; 3. the existing mechanism of dispute resolution, time involved for resolution, and compliance cost; 4. existing mechanism and recommend measures for improved taxpayer services and taxpayers education programme. The Commission has cited various authorities including earlier Committees to suggest that we don't need a Revenue Secretary over the Chairmen of the two Revenue Boards. The Commission feels that before long both the Boards have to be merged. For the last about fifty years IRS officers have been demanding a higher status for their Boards and Chairmen and they all resent reporting to the Revenue Secretary who they think is junior to the Chairmen and Members, considering the year of retirement. For example, the present Chairman of the CBEC is a 1977 batch officer while the present Revenue Secretary is a 1980 batch IAS officer. Even the junior most Member of the CBEC is a 1979 batch officer senior to the Revenue Secretary. Only an IFS officer is appointed as Foreign Secretary and only a Railway officer heads the Indian Railways and they say even the Postal Secretary is a Postal Service officer - then why should the premier IRS officer report to a junior IAS officer at the fag end of his service? These sentiments were best expressed by P. Satya Prasant, a Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax in hisblog. As far as the Indian administration is concerned, unless the hegemony of the IAS is done away with there is no hope in the hell for an honourable career for other services. One can only hope that realization will dawn upon the Government of India, read IAS. The Revenue Secretary who heads the Department of the Revenue is usually an IAS officer. The entire problem lies here, in this age old and faulty setup. Both the CBDT and Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), which governs the Customs and Central Excise Department, functions under the administrative control of the Department of Revenue. Till recently both these Boards did not even have independent financial powers. Before the Sixth Central Pay Commission, the Chairmen and Members of both these Boards were only ex-officio Additional Secretaries to the Government of India. The CBDT and CBEC are not completely independent in their functioning and are dependent on the Department of Revenue and through it on the Revenue Secretary. Even the regular and routine transfers of the Commissioners of Income Tax and above are routed through and done only after the approval of the Revenue Secretary, read IAS. The Revenue Secretary even writes the Annual Performance Appraisal Reports (APARs) of the Chairmen and Members of both these Boards. What is worse and more disgusting is the fact that most often than not the Revenue Secretary, an IAS officer, belongs to a junior batch than the IRS officers who man both these Boards. This means that all the Chairmen and Members of both CBDT and CBEC report to a person who is junior to them, which is a cause of great concern and heartburn among the IRS officers. This is when all the IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS officers are recruited through the same examination. These days even some of the top rankers in the Civil Services Examination are choosing IRS over IAS and IPS and quite definitely most of the lady candidates prefer IRS over IAS and IPS because of the least political interference, stable postings and postings to metros. This means that a higher ranked candidate in the Civil Services Examination who chooses IRS is forced to become a subordinate to a lower ranked candidate who chooses IAS in the same examination or even worse an IAS officer who is much junior to him in service. This faulty setup also robs the dynamism of the Income Tax Department and the IRS officers as everything is to be routed through the additional and unnecessary level of Revenue Secretary. The only and the best solution to this sad situation is to immediately upgrade the status of CBDT to that of a Department in the Government of India by renaming it as the ‘Department of Direct Taxes', with its Chairman and Members having the status of ex-officio Secretary to the Government of India (unlike the present status of ex-officio Special Secretary). This type of structure was recommended by the Wanchoo Committee (1971) and the Raja Chelliah Committee (1991) too.