From 50 Years Ago: Equity in Tax Collection

Equity in Tax Collection

It was evident at the time of the last budget that assembly-line techniques might find use in a new sphere, tax administration. Morarji Desai announced then that he proposed to introduce division of labour in tax collection — letting notices be issued by subordinate staff, leaving higher staff to concentrate on actual assessment. This was followed by the ostentatious introduction of a Honeywell computer for tax assessment and collection. More recently, a working group of the Administrative Reform Commission has recommended that tax collection effort should be concentrated on high income assessees. And certainly, the vast amount of outstanding under direct taxes, equal to more than a year’s collection, support the case for concentrating the limited tax machinery on cases yielding maximum advantage.