Fight Against Corruption: The Role of Advent Technology

Recently, the Ministry of Finance forced compulsory retirement on 12 senior IT officers, including SK Srivastava, Ashok Agarwal, Homi Rajvansh, Alok Kumar Mitra, and B.B. Rajendra Prasad amid allegations of corruption, extortion, and professional misconduct. Under Rule 56 of the General Financial Rules (GFRs), the Govt. took this significant step in the public interest and issued a stern warning on zero tolerance for bribery and fraud within the bureaucracy.

Of course, the perpetrators must be punished while the dismissal of these officials would certainly deter others from committing unethical activities in the future. However, bribery, disproportionate assets, and abuse of power can be found in every corner of the IT Department nowadays and the root cause for that might lies with the searches as well as seizures. These are severe instruments to enforce the law and leads towards the misuse of power as well as harassment on the taxpayers, including those who missed the deadlines due to some genuine reasons. Such instruments create an unfavourable atmosphere in terms of a non-adversarial tax regime and put uncertainty over individual taxpayers as well as corporate players. Undoubtedly, enforcement of the law is crucial, however, some of the safeguards must be provided within the context of law to ensure non-discretionary actions from the Govt. officers.

However, in this digital era, we can build an appropriate system for Income Tax Filing & Returns by utilizing cutting-edge technologies such as big-data analytics to prevent tax avoidance and tax evasion. Already, the Modi Govt. implemented GST which enables easier tax payments and refund claims for any taxpayer by successfully eliminating interactions between tax officers and taxpayers. As corruption is an everyday practice in India, only the transparent financial operations might put an end to it in a more effective manner.