Government has chargesheeted the three senior-most officers who were a part of the report.
New Delhi:Forty-three pages of suggestions and recommendations have been made by 44 young Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers in their paper titled “FORCE”—Fiscal Options and Response to Covid-19 Epidemic. This has gone public and generated an immediate response from the government that has not been favourable to the 44.
The action taken against them has taken away any benefits these officers would have got for their proactive approach and overshadowed the many useful suggestions that they had made for India to tide over the economic crisis that it is facing because of Covid 19, in their view.
Sources told The Sunday Guardian that as soon as the report was released by the IRS Association on its Twitter handle, a frantic effort was launched to discredit the report even before it could be given a serious reading and analysis. The report has now been withdrawn and is officially not available.
“We hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will read the paper and then decide its usefulness,” stated a batchmate of one of the IRS officers who had contributed to the report.
The young officers who prepared this report were from the 2014 to 2019 batches. According to this officer, the government and journalists should have at least read the report before making it a “rogue” document.
“Where else does it happen that some young officers, going beyond their call of duty, compile a report that covers every visible aspect of the economy and present it to the government as a suggestion and they are punished for it? How does the government expect us to play a proactive role when the one time we do it, we are punished like we have done a huge mistake?”
These officers, while suggesting the introduction of the wealth tax on those earning more than Rs 5 crore or increasing the income tax rate for those earning more than Rs 1 crore, had stated that: “In times like these, the so called ‘super rich’ have a higher obligation towards ensuring the larger public good. This is for multiple reasons—they enjoy a higher capacity to pay with significantly higher levels of disposable incomes compared with the rest, they have a higher stake in ensuring the economy springs back into action, and their current levels of wealth itself is a product of the social contract between the state and its citizens. In view of several European economists, taxing the wealthy would be the most ‘progressive fiscal tool’, as wealth is far more concentrated than income and consumption.”
Another of their suggestions was to increase the surcharge applicable to the Higher Income Foreign Companies having a Branch Office/ Permanent Establishment in India. “The said surcharge has not been revised for some time now, and with companies operating in India and deriving profits through their PEs, it is time that a flourishing market like India with its huge prospects flexes its customer-base muscle. Such measures are time-tested, especially in the context of European countries,” stated the suggestion.
These officers also suggested that the additional amount that is mopped up from these two measures should be placed in a separate kitty, almost like an escrow account. “The Government can then identify 5-10 most crucial projects/schemes entailing significant expenditure, which are likely to have a decisive impact on reviving the economy. The costs attached with such projects will be worked out, and these projects should be listed on a Government website, accessible to the entire public. The Government should commit itself to the fact that the additional revenue raised through taxing the wealthy will only and only be utilised for these 5-10 projects/schemes. Additionally, the website should display a live spending meter against each of these projects/schemes, which will mention the expenditure incurred till date.”
“The soul of the report was mentioned in the initial pages itself: ‘It is clear that the Government needs to spend considerably more to revive the economy; and it needs to raise additional revenue, but in ways that must not burden the already distressed common man’—but no one talked about it. The media and our bosses discredited the report,” the officer added, while stating that it was a totally unexpected reaction that they got.
The paper had also suggested a direct cash transfer of Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 a month for the most economically disadvantaged 12 crore households over a period of at least six months and to allow the deferral of tax payment by individuals who have lost their jobs for six months or until they find a new job.
Another officer pointed at the suggestion regarding contribution by the companies to the PM Cares fund and CM relief fund, which if allowed, wold lead to greater contribution to the funds in these times of need. “The paper had also suggested rewarding those who were paying their taxes on time. Also, a lot of hue and cry was raised by vested interests over the suggestion to reintroduce inheritance tax which was there till 1985. You can guess who were the people who would have been impacted by the inheritance tax. We can go on to prove that the paper was sound but there is no point as it has already been discredited,” the officer said.
The government has chargesheeted the three senior most officers who were a part of this report. They are Prashant Bhushan (1988 batch), Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Delhi, Prakash Dubey (2001 batch), Director, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and Sanjay Bahadur (1989 batch), Principal Director of Investigations in the North-east region for the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). While Bhushan wrote the foreward of the report, the other two were mentioned as “guides” in the report.
The action taken against them has taken away any benefits these officers would have got for their proactive approach and overshadowed the many useful suggestions that they had made for India to tide over the economic crisis that it is facing because of Covid 19, in their view.
Sources told The Sunday Guardian that as soon as the report was released by the IRS Association on its Twitter handle, a frantic effort was launched to discredit the report even before it could be given a serious reading and analysis. The report has now been withdrawn and is officially not available.
“We hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will read the paper and then decide its usefulness,” stated a batchmate of one of the IRS officers who had contributed to the report.
The young officers who prepared this report were from the 2014 to 2019 batches. According to this officer, the government and journalists should have at least read the report before making it a “rogue” document.
“Where else does it happen that some young officers, going beyond their call of duty, compile a report that covers every visible aspect of the economy and present it to the government as a suggestion and they are punished for it? How does the government expect us to play a proactive role when the one time we do it, we are punished like we have done a huge mistake?”
These officers, while suggesting the introduction of the wealth tax on those earning more than Rs 5 crore or increasing the income tax rate for those earning more than Rs 1 crore, had stated that: “In times like these, the so called ‘super rich’ have a higher obligation towards ensuring the larger public good. This is for multiple reasons—they enjoy a higher capacity to pay with significantly higher levels of disposable incomes compared with the rest, they have a higher stake in ensuring the economy springs back into action, and their current levels of wealth itself is a product of the social contract between the state and its citizens. In view of several European economists, taxing the wealthy would be the most ‘progressive fiscal tool’, as wealth is far more concentrated than income and consumption.”
Another of their suggestions was to increase the surcharge applicable to the Higher Income Foreign Companies having a Branch Office/ Permanent Establishment in India. “The said surcharge has not been revised for some time now, and with companies operating in India and deriving profits through their PEs, it is time that a flourishing market like India with its huge prospects flexes its customer-base muscle. Such measures are time-tested, especially in the context of European countries,” stated the suggestion.
These officers also suggested that the additional amount that is mopped up from these two measures should be placed in a separate kitty, almost like an escrow account. “The Government can then identify 5-10 most crucial projects/schemes entailing significant expenditure, which are likely to have a decisive impact on reviving the economy. The costs attached with such projects will be worked out, and these projects should be listed on a Government website, accessible to the entire public. The Government should commit itself to the fact that the additional revenue raised through taxing the wealthy will only and only be utilised for these 5-10 projects/schemes. Additionally, the website should display a live spending meter against each of these projects/schemes, which will mention the expenditure incurred till date.”
“The soul of the report was mentioned in the initial pages itself: ‘It is clear that the Government needs to spend considerably more to revive the economy; and it needs to raise additional revenue, but in ways that must not burden the already distressed common man’—but no one talked about it. The media and our bosses discredited the report,” the officer added, while stating that it was a totally unexpected reaction that they got.
The paper had also suggested a direct cash transfer of Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 a month for the most economically disadvantaged 12 crore households over a period of at least six months and to allow the deferral of tax payment by individuals who have lost their jobs for six months or until they find a new job.
Another officer pointed at the suggestion regarding contribution by the companies to the PM Cares fund and CM relief fund, which if allowed, wold lead to greater contribution to the funds in these times of need. “The paper had also suggested rewarding those who were paying their taxes on time. Also, a lot of hue and cry was raised by vested interests over the suggestion to reintroduce inheritance tax which was there till 1985. You can guess who were the people who would have been impacted by the inheritance tax. We can go on to prove that the paper was sound but there is no point as it has already been discredited,” the officer said.
The government has chargesheeted the three senior most officers who were a part of this report. They are Prashant Bhushan (1988 batch), Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Delhi, Prakash Dubey (2001 batch), Director, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and Sanjay Bahadur (1989 batch), Principal Director of Investigations in the North-east region for the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). While Bhushan wrote the foreward of the report, the other two were mentioned as “guides” in the report.
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