Last line of defence

It's exactly six months since I took charge as assessing officer, Circle 1(1), Bhubaneswar. And its been good six months. On the day I took charge, to be frank, I had apprehensions. I had not really been a serious student at the academy and given the hype about income tax being a very technical field my apprehensions were well placed.

Yet my self-appraisal about my last six months is that I enjoyed the work. Thoroughly. Home town Bhubaneswar about which too I had apprehensions turned out a welcome change: a son of soil getting rooted. As for the intricacies of accounts and law, I enjoyed it to the hilt. I learnt much more from my senior Dipi ma'am here than I did at the academy (inspite of Tripura ma'am's vigorous whips to train me) and have managed to get an attitude towards the job. Not for a moment did I find the job taxing.

Yet these six months have left me wondering: what keeps a taxman going? An army man defends the country; a policeman protects; the local administrator develops; even a guy from Customs & Excise is involved in anti-narcotics operations and customs inspection. What is the glory, the pride, in financial investigations? When I wonder this out loud, pat comes a reply from some corner hidden behind huge stacks of files "you collect taxes that helps these guys do what they do".

Naah. That's the dumbest reply I have heard.

Let me tell you what I understood of the essence of being a tax sleuth is: Income Tax department is the first and last line of defence of this country's socialism. Period.

The founding fathers of this country had envisioned a country of balances and diversity. Balance between capitalism on one extreme and communism (marxist, maoist etc) on the other is one of the basics of this country. A common middleway is socialism. In the post-liberalisation era the concept of socialism assumes even more significance because now this country runs the risk of being run over by raw capitalist forces: big corporates who can call the shots in policy making. The need many policy makers have voiced is for balanced development in post-liberalisation period.

In many other countries liberalisation policies have been followed by a handful getting too big to control and gobbling up all public resources. Here comes the role of income tax sleuths: to maintain balance. To use a jargon, IT department is the prime agent of macro-economic stabilization. When Jayashankar sir had spoken about it in the academy the word looked so fanciful. The core idea behind it is not to let the markets run amok.

But more critical role of IT department is circulation of wealth. 30% taxes on any corporate body reminds the corporate of what it owes to the country and its people. As agents investigating tax evasion, IT sleuths are the only dedicated and specialized force looking into corporate behaviour.

Such is the nature of this job that starting from day 1 of his career an assistant commissioner of IT investigates into corporate files and tries to understand the logic and law behind any financial behaviour. This gives this department the unique ability to understand financial behaviour at a more subliminal level. Indeed, IT department is the first and last line of defence of socialism. Just like the army is first line of defence of this sovereign's sovereignty and paramilitary is second.