859/CBDT. - Income Tax - 859/CBDT

INSTRUCTION NO. 859/CBDT Dated : August 2, 1975 The Board have had under consideration the question of collection. collation and dissemination of information regarding all aspects of economic activity in the country. 2. From information received from Commissioners regarding the programme followed by them during the past 3 years, it appears that in some Charges, the Special Investigation Branch collects a variety of information for being passed on to the Income-tax Officers but in other charges the effort is nominal. Often the information collected pertains to Board's directives regarding assessability of properties, life insurance policies of substantial amounts pump owners etc. In other cases Commissioners have been collecting information on their own without following any particular directive. It is, however,observed that there is no proper machinery for verifying how the information furnished by the S.I.B to I.T.Os. has been utilised. Most of the Commissioners have complained of inadequate staff, particularly Inspectors. The Director, O M Services has in his Circular No. 2/12/73-DOMS dated 20-12-1974 (printed below) revised the duties and functions of Inspectors. It will be seen that Inspectors are not to assist in assessment work except in Company Circles and Central Circles. This would have released some Inspectors for other workstudy to be conducted by the Directorate of O M Services, the Board desire that the following measures should be implemented immediately:- (i) The Special Investigation Branch, wherever it exists should be renamed "Central Information Branch". It should be placed under an IAC in the Headquarters of the Commissioner, preferably the IAC in-charge of Survey. Where there is no SIB, steps should be taken to allot one Income-tax Officer assisted by a few Inspectors and complementary staff from out of the existing strength and a Central Information Branch formed. (ii) The Central Information Branch will be responsible for collection, collation and dissemination of information to ITOs from sources, both internal and external. It may not be possible for the Central Information Branch to directly collect information from sources outside the headquarters. In that cases the services of Inspectors in Survey Circles may be utilised for this purpose. But the work of collation and dissemination of information should be done by the Central Information Branch. (iii) Copies of intimation slips issued to ITOs should be forwarded to the Range IACs concerned who will, at the time of annual Inspection, test check as to how the information has been utilised and specifically comment about it. (iv) The Central Information Branch should be Inspected by the Commissioner once every year. In multi-Commissioners charges this should be done by the senior most Commissioner or any other commissioner nominated by him. (v) Most of the Commissioners have chalked out a Programme for collection of information in the financial year 1975-76. While the Board does not wish to interfere with the programmes drawn, they desire that special attention should be given in this year to the collection of information from sources referred to in Annexure for the each Charge. (vi) Care should be taken to see that there is no overlapping of the functions of the Central Information Branch and the Survey Circles. (vii) For the present the Board does not propose to fix any standard of performance. This will be done later after a work-study.