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November 2011

Senior I-T authorities ignored computer system failure

By Raman Jokhakar, Tarunkumar Singhal
Chartered Accountants
Reading Time 1 mins
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The apathy of income-tax (I-T) authorities caused a loss of around Rs.35,000 crore in tax collection in the city. The loss occurred, as information collected by the Department’s Central Information Branch (CIB), was not disseminated to concerned field officials from 2005-06 to 2009-10.

The information gathered by CIB is segregated automatically by the computer system and disseminated to concerned Income-tax Officers (ITOs), who do assessment work or to the investigation wing of the Department, which conducts searches. The Directorate of Systems of the Income-tax (I-T) Department in New Delhi handles the overall computer network system.

A letter, dated May 10, 2010 written by A. C. Tejpal, who was then Director of Income-tax (CIB), Mumbai, to the Indian Audit and Accounts Department, had said that the CIB had since 2005-06 to 2009-10 collected over 11.4 crore pieces of information (on unaccounted income) of which 2,247 were disseminated to concerned officials. It further mentioned that not a single piece of information was disseminated through computer system. In 2,247 pieces of information, the CIB found unaccounted income of Rs.14,758 crore on which total tax payable was Rs.5,000 crore. The CIB Mumbai was trying to get the system rectified since 2005.

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