The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has decided to register informers for giving them monetary reward under the new rules to be issued in budget 2005-2006. Sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday that the present reward rules are being grossly misused by the customs officials and it is proposed to allocate numbers to the registered informers to ascertain their credentials. Ironically, the data of the informers, who claim millions of rupees as reward, is not available with the CBR.
Once all the informers are registered, the customs officials using the cover of informers will not be able to claim any reward. However, chalking out of transparent procedure will be an uphill task for the authorities due to the proposed withdrawal of incentives for tax officials operating as informers.
Sources said that there is a need to particularly specify reward for tax officials under the new law, which should not exceed two years basic salary for tax officials.
The informers should not be given more than Rs 0.2 million as reward on confiscation of non-duty paid goods. In India, the maximum reward per year for tax officials is Rs 1 million.
The new rules will also check the unlimited discretionary powers of customs officials to distribute reward money from the Common Pool Fund (CPF). The utilisation of CPF resources will be re-drafted to curb misuse of powers by the tax officials.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) opined that CBR is giving extremely high bonuses and reward to tax officials on detection of tax evasion, which encourage the tax officials to harass the taxpayers.
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