I am not alone

An excerpt from the book "Revolutionary Wealth" by Alvin & Heidi Toffler.

As a then-leading member of the U.S. Senate, Connie Mack, once complained to us:

We never have more than two and a half uninterrupted minutes for anything on Capitol Hill. There’s no time to stop and think or to have anything approaching an intellectual conversation….

We have to spend two thirds of our time doing public relations, campaigning or raising campaign funds. I’m on this committee, that task force, the other working group, and who knows what else. Do you think I can possibly know enough to make intelligent decisions about all the different things I’m supposed to know about? It’s impossible. There’s no time. So my staff makes more and more decisions.

Very reassuring.

You are the Assistant Commisioner of Income-tax when...

Every letter / notice / circular gets marked to you irrespective of its intended recipient. And you are expected to respond to it.

You unconsciously attain specialization in sending reports of whose purpose you have no idea and of whose contents you have no clue.

You get RTI applications asking for data pertaining to the last 20, 30 or even 50 years when the Income-tax act deprives you of any power to look into issues more than six years old.

Any file you open reminds you of the Harappan script you saw in your sixth grade history textbook.

You start nodding to everything your boss says irrespective of its practical viability and your personal capability.

You wish that you could outsource the task of hearing the Chartered Accountants / Advocates / Income-tax Practitioners to Sach ka Saamna.

You spend 90 % of your time searching for your staff while they spend 90% of their time searching for the file you asked for.

The remaining 10% of the time is spent counting the number of digits in figures of the Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss accounts.

All you see during examination of books of accounts is numbers scrolling down like the famed matrix screensaver.

You issue refunds worth lakhs of rupees, but your own reimbursement of official travel bill of Rs 340 never sees the light of the day.

You realize that if your salary is linked to the number of signatures you affix, you could breeze your way into the Forbes list within a year.

Idiot and I

If traffic is something people have to fight everyday in metros, it is boredom in smaller towns. More often than not, you are miserably alone. You wouldn’t have too many friends of your age and those who are older have families to go back to. Having got used to always-on internet connectivity for around half a decade, browsing on a USB modem is not an entirely pleasurable experience. All these have pushed me into a forced wedlock with the idiot box. It is boring and utterly irritating. Yet, I go back to it every evening and it is the first thing I see when I wake up each morning. That is why I call it wedlock.

So let me give you a glimpse of my marital bliss. Frankly, I don’t watch anything in particular. I just keep surfing the channels. Today, when my better half was turned on (no pun intended) it was showing one of those soaps. It was a close-up shot of a couple who were holding each other. The teary-eyed lady looked deep into the man’s eyes. I waited for ten minutes but neither of them even batted their eyelids, leave alone indulging in any other motion. The camera showed them in two dozen angles with jarring vocals playing endlessly in the background. I shifted to the next channel.

The enterprising channel was interviewing a maid who supposedly worked in the same neighbourhood where Shiny Ahuja lived. I immediately ran down to the one-room temple below my guest house and thanked God that dogs still do not speak a language the news channels can understand. When I returned, the programme was drawing to a close. The anchor signed off saying, “There is a glaring difference between the on-screen and off-screen images of stars.” What a revelation! Thanks dude. But for you I would have still remained under the belief that Tobey Maguire could actually jump from one skyscraper to another.

My next pit stop was MTV, which more than makes up for the unavailability of FTV. As usual, a bunch of girls were flaunting their long sun-tanned legs performing acts on which even those with abnormally low IQ would have second thoughts. Seeing them being so jobless, wandering without proper cloths or food (they seem to survive on Papayas and Watermelons), I am convinced that recession is for real. I don’t understand why those creative brains that run the ticker refuse to rename roadies and splitsvilla as leggies and stripsvilla. If you try to listen what they speak, it would something like this: “What the *beep*. I know I am the most deserving. This *beep* is trying *beep* me off. Just *beep* off, OK? “

At the succeeding English news channel, after discussing India’s loss at T-20 for more than 20 hours since the loss, the newsreader remarked that a 360 degree coverage of the loss would follow. Can’t we have a 20-20 version of news? When we can have a nano car and nano houses, why not nano news channels? Any business house which starts such a channel can claim to have delivered the biggest CSR.

An aspirin and a few clicks later, I found myself watching Gemini Music. It made me nostalgic. A lot has changed in the last three years, including the name of the channel, but the husky beauty has stuck on. Nothing has changed. Neither her voice nor her wardrobe. Who says that change is the only thing which is constant?

The following 38 channels had the same programme. People of all ages and genders were dancing or singing or doing both. Kids displayed undesirable precociousness in garments and gesticulations. And the judges were those whom people wanted neither to sing nor to dance. Even better if they stayed at home. If not singing and dancing, they set upon narrating jokes on which only the judges laughed and the studio audience clapped. Captive audience in every sense of the term.

At the next click, I returned to where I began. The lady was still looking deeply into the guys’ eyes. The camera must have zoomed in from 845 different angles. Tears, which welled up in her eyes, still did not roll down. I think I must revisit my high school physics and relearn surface tension lessons. I am sure if I can understand this, the Income-tax act would be a cake walk.

I disinterestedly set upon the next round of surfing.......

Krishna Connection

Vijayawada. That is the place chosen for me to begin my career. Everyone would like to work in metros and big cities. That is where the action for IRS lies. Big cases, complicated issues and ingenious chartered accountants collude to sharpen the learning curve. But small towns have their own charm, I was told. If you dispute my terming of Vijayawada as a ‘small town’, all I can say in defense is that small is relative. The last time I referred to Vijayawada as small, the listener broke into a sarcastic laugh. An accomplished bureaucrat who retired as Chief Secretary, he must have felt that I was being snobbish. I can’t blame him much. Even my batchmate in the IAS, who is posted in Eluru, protested instantly at my judgment of urban sizes.

It is characteristic of my service that we don’t begin with places like Rampachodavaram. Atleast not till the Government thinks of taxing collection of honey and sale of wild jackfruits. And that, considering the reluctance to bring agriculture in the ambit of taxes, seems very remote. So for IRS, where a lot of our colleagues start their careers at places like Mumbai and Delhi, Vijayawada is a small place.

So what is it that makes small places charming? It is the people. The day I was to reach here, my train was scheduled to arrive here at 4:45 in the morning. I called the office the previous day and asked if they could send someone to the railway station as I was new to the place and was arriving at an odd hour. In about an hour’s time, I got a call from the driver. I asked him to be at the station by 4:30 in the morning. He said he would be at 4 am. And he was. It was just the beginning. It is ten days since I came here. And I have never come across anyone who thinks twice when you ask him for something. People here respect you to the point of embarrassment.

One reason could be because officers of my rank are few. There are five officers of the rank Assistant / Deputy Commissioners in Vijayawada. The corresponding number in Hyderabad is more than 50. Other could be historical. During my interaction with a senior officer, who hails from this place, I was told the behavior of people towards Government officials is result of the colonial history. Since the region, unlike Hyderabad, was under the colonial rule, the people are well-acquainted with administrative machinery and are more conscious of the power, potential and the reach of Government. This is something which would be put to test soon. How?

My jurisdiction consists mainly of old parts of the city and adjoining rural areas. The economic growth is not very vibrant in these parts. But that doesn’t grant me immunity from upward revision of revenue targets. My predecessor felt that collections have reached optimum levels and are likely to plateau. The only way to increase collection was to widen the tax net. So I have sent about 400 letters to assesses, who were not filing returns to do so. Non-filing of Income-tax returns when you have a taxable income or when you belong to particular class of assesses like companies could lead to imprisonment. The response to these letters would reveal whether the people here are truly respectful of the authority of Government.

Personally what I like the most about small cities is their contribution on the professional front. You get to deal with all types of cases. In big cities, there is an element of specialization in the jurisdiction. Some charges deal with only salary cases, some with business cases and others with companies. However, in small cities, the jurisdiction is territorial. So one gets to deal all kinds of cases and consequently the experience is more varied. Secondly, the workload is relatively more manageable. Not that every colleague of mine in the metros are getting buried under the piles of files, but a few of them do have quite a Herculean task ahead of them. And for me, after two years of slumber at Mussoorie and Nagpur, keeping myself awake when sun is still high is in itself a Herculean task.

Autobiography of an Another Yogi

Today, I woke up very very early. At 7:10 am. Thanks to the kind-hearted soul who banged my door as he ran to the sports complex for the morning Yoga. In a jiffy I ripped off my shirt, the one in which I dozed off last night watching a movie, and groped for my t-shirt in the darkness. It was there exactly where it was 56 days ago, under the pile unread newspapers, scissors, a DVD which I rented three weeks ago, the charger of my phone which I dumped two weeks ago and ear phones of my present phone. Despite the risk of being late, I took a moment to feel proud about how systematic, orderly and organized I am. Not a single molecule moves from its preordained position. Time seems to have no effect on them. I smiled. It feels good to start the day on a positive note.

I stepped out and observed a sea of OTs dressed in the dark blue academy jackets. It reminded me of The Matrix. I was the only one without a jacket. It then occurred to me that it was cold. I cursed the vagaries of weather due to man-induced changes in the environment. How on earth should I know that it would be so cold in the morning? The last time I went to Yoga, the temperature was 15 degrees higher, a little humid and the sky was cloudy. I never realized that such huge difference existed between the mornings of monsoon and winter.

When I reached the sports complex, I had same effect on my friends which George Bush wanted on Iraq, shock and awe. Depending on their respective academic, social and religious indoctrinations, analysis and conclusions ranging from End of History to End of the World emerged. I sheepishly smiled and wished them thinking it would divert their gaze. It ended up as an exercise in futility.

I entered the Yoga room. The mats were new. May be they were bought to cater to the new batch of probationers who arrived last week. Amidst the melee of probationers spreading their mats and settling down, the Yoga instructor sighted me. He adjusted his glasses and looked if it was really me. On confirmation, he had the same look on his face which a bollywood father has in the climax when he meets his son lost in the opening reels of the film.

As the count began for the asanas, a tinge of nostalgia stuck me. It was just as if yesterday was the first day I missed my morning Yoga class. Time is such a deceiving devil, I mused. It flies faster than we think. As I returned to my room after Yoga, I found the maid in-charge of my floor cleaning one of my friend’s room. I asked her to come to my room after she is done with the room. She quizzically asked on which floor my room was. With utmost honesty, I replied that I stayed on the same floor. “Oh”, she remarked as if something from her long-term memory suddenly got retrieved. “Room number 21”, I said to avoid further embarrassment. She had a derisive smile in which I could read, “That room which never opens even after a hundred knocks.”

She promptly came. She too was surprised that things did not change one bit since she last visited. As she cleaned, the bearer got the morning tea. I extended my mug. He raised his eyebrows with remark which only I could hear, “So, you too have your morning tea?” I proudly smiled saying to myself, “Yes, I do.” Once, I finished my tea, the laundry guy came to my floor. When he saw me standing with cloths, he almost dropped the pressed clothes he was carrying. I remember him knocking my door every alternate day asking if there were any clothes to be pressed. I involuntarily shout from my blanket that I had none. One day, despite my repeated shouting he continued to knock my door. I furiously opened to give him a dressing down. But before I could burst out, he pleaded “Sir, please take back your pressed clothes. I am trying to give them back since a week but you refuse to open the door.” As usual, I got away with my trademark sheepish smile.

I was happy that I could do a lot of tasks that were pending. But what was more satisfying is that my presence at the early morning Yoga has motivated my friends to think and dream big. VV, who previously worked for railways, now believes that trains running at 500 km/hr would be a reality in the next six months. MJ, a doctor, thinks that next year we could have an oral vaccine that would protect us from both cancer and AIDS. NN, who hails from Bangalore, is confident that next time he visits home, he can reach M.G.Road from airport in 20 minutes. Today, they have realized that “I have a dream” and “Audacity of hope” are not mere dramatic phrases. If they could spot me at the early morning Yoga, they can even expect their day dreams to come true.

The One Year Itch

It is one year since I joined the National Academy of Direct taxes. I think it is time that I share what I have learnt in this one year. The major subjects were accountancy and Income Tax Act. Accountancy was truly unnerving to say the least. Though I come from an engineering background, I am not very comfortable with numbers with a trail of zeros. I don’t mind algebraic expressions. But pages with high density of numbers is not something I was familiar or comfortable with. Till date, the maximum numerical density I could tolerate was the soduku square. Here was a long list of numbers waiting to be divided into two categories, debit and credit. The challenge was not in segregation, but in ensuring that their totals were identical. And that’s where my woes began.

Actually, debit and credit are not entirely new to me. Debit is the name of the card which was given to me by the bank which has my salary account. It is a good card but doesn’t work after the 10^th day of the month. Credit is the card which my dad gave me. It works 365 days a year. To sum up, I had very pleasant memories of “debit’ and “credit”. But ever since I started my accountancy classes, I began to hate those words. At the end of the course, the only thing that I am confident of is that I can draw a line that would run exactly through the center of the page.

I don’t think my experience with the Income Tax act is very different. Even the best of the argumentative Indians will acknowledge without second thoughts that it is the most difficult and complicated pieces of legislation. But that is how tax legislations are. It is said that Prince Siddhartha left his kingdom the day his taxation classes began. Later, he attained enlightenment pondering over the first word uttered in the class, “Income”. Chandragupta Maurya, fearing that his son too might run away, divested himself of the finance portfolio and handed it over to Chanakya. Chanakya’s concern for posterity took the shape of Arthashasthra. But that is where the problems began to grow in geometric progression. Codification of laws gives rise to a new phenomenon called “interpretation”, whose limits coincide with that of ingenuity and insanity.

The Income Tax Act, 1961 must be having around 400 sections, 1200 sub-sections and god-knows-how-many provisos and explanations. But I know only two sections. Section A and Section B. Section B is where HK and CM sit. I too sit sleep there. HK sits next to me, wakes me up when the class is over and reminds me that it is time to go for lunch / tea / home. CM was her predecessor. But for these two, I am not really sure to which sections the rest of my batchmates belong to. I hardly see any of them. The road from the mess to my classroom is utterly deserted when I run every morning to the class with a toast in mouth and paper tissues in my hands. If I am lucky, I wouldn’t be caught by my Assistant Course Director at the entrance of building.

If I am luckier, then he would send me back and ask me to join the next session. I would then go back to the mess and have a complete breakfast. Since I would be the lone diner, the entire staff of the mess would be there to serve me. I would leisurely eat till I risk falling asleep on the dining table. I would then take a cup of tea and take a stroll across the lawns opposite to the mess and wonder for the zillionth time how beautiful early mornings are. Never mind the clock striking 10. ‘Early’ is relative.

Yes, I lose one half casual leave for missing the class. But how does that matter. I never needed any leaves. I don’t have anywhere to go or anything to do. During probation, marriage is the most common occasion for which officers apply for a leave. I don’t see myself getting married even in my next birth and don’t have sufficient foresight to look beyond that. I don’t even have a beautiful fiancé / girlfriend whom I would love to meet. Considering that it took two and a half decades to get rid of me, I am the last person whom my parents would love see at their door. No wonder, in my one year stay in the academy, I just took one day leave. That was just last week. It was to attend a wedding of my batchmate at Punjab. At the risk of repetition and boredom, I would like to confess that I had no luck with lasses at the wedding.

On my way back, at Delhi, I managed to detain MS for a coffee. I love meeting MS because she is the only human being who often tells me that I am smart, intelligent and funny. I know it is her education that makes her say so. She was a practicing psychiatrist who is now pursuing M. Phil at IHBAS. It was more than a year I met her and I shared my achievements (or rather the lack of it) with her. This time even her professional experience couldn’t prevent her from getting shocked at how disastrous a person could be. When she recovered, she managed to blurt out, “I am scared what is going to happen when you go to office next April.”

I calmly replied, “So is the Government of India”

Honest Taxpayers

“I have some more cases for you”, my surrogate trainer (ST) announced.

It was around 10 days since my “On Job Training” (OJT) began. He handed me a case bang on the day I reported to him. It was a case where the investigations were in progress. He asked me to study it, find Grey areas and prepare a questionnaire. That he served my questionnaire on the assessee[1] without much change was a tacit acknowledgment that I did a decent job. Or atleast I concluded it that way. Self-confidence building measures, you see. The assessee asked for time to file his reply. It was at this juncture that my ST announced that he had more cases in store for me.

I was happy because going through these files was certainly more interesting than observing office procedures like maintenance of records, handling mails etc. And, occasionally, you also get some page 3 pleasures when you see where and how the rich and famous have their wealth made or stored. I looked forward to the next case as it was an opportunity to prove that my previous efforts were not a fluke and I did have some soft mass beneath my hard skull. Not that my ST doubted; He was fine trainer who seemed to believe positively in the potentials of young officers. It is just that I did not want to prove him wrong like I did to most of my teachers who taught me previously.

Files of three cases were brought and placed on the large table of my ST. I picked up the case with the bulkiest of files. It is said that the best way to overcome the fear of something is to face it. And that was precisely what I was trying to do. Get over the fear of files, more importantly, the real fat ones. I took them back to my desk. STs are usually range heads, whose functions are mainly supervisory. He would have around five assessing officers under him who would scrutinse the Income Tax returns filed in the range. The range head does not do the scrutinies. However, in recent years, the range heads have been asked to scrutinise the top 20 cases in their jurisdiction. The case given to me was one such case. I found that my ST had begun investigations and had called for a lot of information from the assessee. He virtually called for proofs of every source of income and every source of expenditure. That explained why those files were so bulky. The assessee too seemed to be a meticulous person. He filed every detail that was called for; That too in a very neat and organised manner. I was impressed.

For the next three days, I perused through the documents. As with most cases, it took sometime to grasp the orientation of the case. True, I had a briefing about the activities of the assessee. But trying to deduce the line of investigation from the documents produced does take some time. Especially, when it is just the second case you are seeing. After three days of perusal, I was utterly frustrated. I could just come up with one issue. In the last case, where the file had just around one-third of documents in the present case, I came up with seven issues. When I brought to my ST's notice, the sole anomaly detected by me, he casually replied that it was already brought to the notice of the assessee, who conceded it. Wow. So that is a clean zero. The following day such was my desperation that I even began to verify the conveyance bills. I called up my friend who lived in Bangalore for four years and asked him the distance between various places in Bangalore and the corresponding taxi charges. This yielded just what my previous efforts in this case yielded. Nothing.

Finally, I gave up. The following morning, when my ST asked the progress in the case, I confessed that I could not detect anything. He seemed to be least perturbed. He made me understand something, remembering which, would hold me good stead in days to come. It not necessary that I always succeed. There would be honest taxpayers and in such cases any amount of scrutiny would not yield anything. Wisdom lies in accepting this fact. There is no point in passing orders making additions to taxable income merely because I have spent days investigating a case and I cannot accept the result to be nothing. It is not a question whether such orders would stand the test of the appellate authorities. They are sure to be knocked down. But in the process, it creates undue hardship to the taxpayer and avoidable workload to my colleagues. Instead, accept the income offered to tax and close the case.

After that day, I went through many files. And not a single one was flawless. But yes, that one file taught me that honest taxpayers are not a realm of fiction. They exist. I may not come across them very frequently. But I should accept one when I come across.

[1] The process of scrutiny of Income Tax returns is termed as assessment. The person being assessed in a case is the assessee.