Power of survey. - Income Tax - 1106/CBDT

INSTRUCTION NO. 1106/CBDT Dated: August 29, 1970 Section(s) Referred: 133 Statute: Income - Tax Act, 1961 The importance of out-door survey in discovery of new income-tax/wealth-tax assessees and locating concealment of income/wealth, if any, in the cases of existing assessees cannot be over-emphasised. The Conference of Commissioners of Income-tax, which met in June, 1977 recognised the need for conducting door-to-door survey in a methodical manner without leaving out any premises. The Public Accounts Committee have also repeatedly stressed the need for systematic surveys of big cities and towns. 2. All the Commissioners of Income-tax should immediately take stock of the survey operations in their respective charges during the last two years viz. 1975-76 and 76-77, and arrange their programme for the current year viz 1977-78 and the following two years viz. 78-79 and 79-80 in such a manner that during the five year period viz. 75-76 to 79-80 all the areas in their respective charges get fully covered. Priority should be given to posh/new localities and important markets in the plan which should serve as the basis for the monthly review of the progress. 3. The property registers kept by the local authorities like Corporations, Municipalities or cantonment boards which collect local taxes, give full particulars and number of each property, name and address of its owner as also the annual letting value of the property, as assessed by the authority. This information should be extracted and used as a check on the door-to-door survey so that no locality or house is left out from its purview. 4. The items to be seen in the course of house to house/shop to shop/rural survey have been indicated in detail in the Inspector's Manual. For rural survey, minutes of the Group discussion on agricultural wealth tax circulated under Board's f.No.17/32/69-WT dated 26.12.69 read with Board's F.No.328/51/70-WT dated 29th August, 1970 may also be seen. A separate proforma has been suggested for surey of newly constructed properties vide Board's D.O.F.No.415/4/72-IT(Inv) dated 19th August, 1972. the organisational pattern of survey circles is indicated in Shri Narayan's D.O.F.No.415/9/74-IT(Inv) dated 30th July, 1974. It is essential that when an inspector surveys a particular property, he makes an integrated enquiry in respect of all the direct taxes in the case of both the owner(s) of the property and occupant(s) thereof. The survey reports have to be drawn up with care giving the relevant factual data instead of indulging in vague generalites and the ITO Survey Circle should test-check not less than 10% of the out-door survey work done by the Inspectors. 5. Keeping in view the valuable contribution which door-to-door survey can make in countering tax evasion and the need to ensure that all areas get systematically and completely surveyed by March, 1980, every Commissioner should review his existing survey set-up and within the broad frame-work given in Shri Narayan's D.O. dated 30th July, 1974 referred to above suitably strengthen and streamline it. In metropolitan cities viz. Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Delhi, survey work should be exclusively assigned to an I.A.C. He will function under the overall control of the CIT-I but be in-charge of the survey work of all the charges. To import necessary dynamism and continuity of operations, comparatively young and energetic officers and inspectors who are not likely to be transferred during the next two years, should be posted to survey circles/ranges. 6. DI(IT A) issues a monthly review of survey operations on the basis of reports from the Commissioners of Income-tax. Every effort should be made to see that these reports fully reflect the results achieved and reach the D.I. in time.