| Service Overview | ||||||||||||||
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Indian Revenue Service |
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| Abbreviation | IRS | |||||||||||||
| Formed | 1953 | |||||||||||||
| Country | India | |||||||||||||
| Training Grounds | 1. National Academy of Direct Taxes (Nagpur) 2. National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (Faridabad) |
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| Controlling Authority | Ministry of Finance, Government of India | |||||||||||||
| Legal Personality | Governmental Federal law enforcement |
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| General Nature | Taxation Revenue Administration Policy Formulation; Policy Implementation; Civil administration; Advisors to Ministers; |
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| Cadre Size | 3904 (Income Tax) 2644 (Customs and Central Excise) |
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| Service Chief | ||||||||||||||
| Chairman, CBDT Chairman, CBEC |
M. C. Joshi S. K. Goel |
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| Head of the Civil Services | ||||||||||||||
| Cabinet Secretary Current: A. K. Seth |
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The Indian Revenue Service (Hindi: भारतीय राजस्व सेवा), abbreviated as IRS, is the revenue service of the Government of India. It is a Central Civil Service (Group A). The service functions under the Department of Revenue in the Union Ministry of Finance and is concerned with the collection and administration of the various direct and indirect taxes accruing to the Union Government.
IRS comprises of two branches - IRS (Income Tax) and IRS (Customs and Central Excise), which are controlled by two separate statutory bodies, viz., Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) respectively.
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The members of IRS are recruited through a three-stage combined selection process called the Civil Services Examination (CSE)(Commonly known as the IAS Examination) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). The CSE is taken by roughly four lakh aspirants each year and is considered to be very challenging.
Stage I Preliminary Examination: It consists of two multiple-choice type papers, viz., General Studies and Aptitude Test. It is purely an elimination round and plays no part in the final rankings. Roughly 10,000 candidates are selected for the next stage.
Stage II Main Examination: This stage is more exhaustive. It has nine papers of conventional (essay) type, of which two Language papers are qualifying in nature. Candidates must select two optional subjects of their choice. There are two papers each of General Studies and the two Optional subjects along with one compulsory Essay paper.
Stage III Personality Test: Around 2,000 aspirants clear the Main Examination and are called for the last stage which is in the form of a personal interview by a board chaired by a member of the UPSC.
Finally, on the basis of a merit list prepared according to the total score in Main Examination and Personality Test, around 800 candidates are recommended for appointment to the various All India Services and Central Civil Services. The candidates have to indicate their relative preference for the various services while applying for the Main Examination.
For entry into IRS, a General category candidate needs to secure a rank within around top 400 (362 for Income Tax and 466 for Customs & Central Excise in CSE-2010). Hence the overall success ratio for entry into IRS is roughly 1:1000 (400 to 400,000), making it one of the most difficult selection processes in India along with the other prestigious services like Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS).
The entire selection process lasts roughly one and a half year. There is a restriction on the number of attempts allowed (a maximum of four for General category and seven for OBC).
IRS Officer Trainees (OTs) first undergo a 3-month Foundation Course (common to all officers recruited through CSE) at any one of the three government academies - National Academy of Direct Taxes (Nagpur), RCVPN Academy of Administration and Management (Bhopal) or MCR HRD Institute of Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad).
This is followed by a 16-month Induction Training, where the OTs are intensively trained in Taxation, Public Administration, Law and Management in addition to physical defense, narcotics detection and firearms. It is conducted at National Academy of Direct Taxes (NADT) - Nagpur for the officers of IRS (IT) and at National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (NACEN) - Faridabad for the officers of IRS (C&CE).Indian Revenue Service officers also have army attachments where they learn warfare.
Administration of income tax in India had begun as early as 1860. In the initial years, provincial governments administered this tax. The organizational history of the Income Tax Department starts from the year 1922, when the IncomeTax Act, 1922, gave specific nomenclature to various Income Tax authorities for the first time. In 1924, the Central Board of Revenue Act constituted a Central Board of Revenue -- the statutory body with functional responsibilities for the administration of the Income-Tax Act. Commissioners of Income Tax were appointed for each province and Assistant Commissioners and Income Tax Officers were placed under their control. Officers from the ICS manned top posts and the lower echelons were filled through promotions from the ranks. The Income Tax Service was established in 1944, which subsequently came to be known as Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax).
The first batch of Income Tax Officers (Class-II) was directly recruited in the year 1944 through the 1943 examination conducted by the Federal Service Commission for IAS and Allied Services.
The recruitment of Income Tax Officers (Class-I) started in 1945 with the recruitment of 18 officers through the IAS Examination of 1944. The service was then known as Income Tax Officers (Class-I) Service.
After the Union Public Service Commission was constituted, the recruitment was done through the combined Civil Services Examination. In 1953, the Service was recognized as an independent Central Service and was named Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax).
In the initial years, the officers were recruited in four different ways: -
Officers directly recruited as I.T.O.Class-II) through the 1943 examination who got promoted to Class-I and were given weightage depending upon the evaluation by their Commissioners Officers directly recruited to Class-I through the 1944 examination Officers directly recruited as I.T.O.Class-II) through the 1943 examination and later selected to Class-I. Weightage was given to them also and their seniority vis-a-vis direct recruits was adjusted Officers promoted to Class-I grade from the lower ranks In 1957, some Income Tax Officers (Class-I) were also recruited on an ad-hoc basis by a competitive examination from amongst officers of armed forces and the Income Tax Officers, (Class-II).
With the passage of time, only two sources of entry to Indian Revenue Service remained- officers directly recruited through Civil Services Examination conducted by UPSC and officers promoted from Income Tax Officers (Class-II) grade.
Induction training at the Academy is now imparted only to the directly recruited IRS officers. Other officers, including the ITOs, attend in-service courses at the Regional Training Institutes.
Starting with Assistant Commissioner (AC), members of the IRS usually rise up to the designation of Chief Commissioner (CC). Some senior-most members serve as Chairpersons or Members of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) and Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT).
These officials look after matters relating to:
• Administration work pertaining to the Department of Revenue;
• Coordination between the two boards (CBDT and CBEC);
• Administration of Central Sales Tax Act - 1956; Foreign Exchange Management Act - 1999; Prevention of Money Laundering Act - 2002; Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act - 1974; Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act - 1985; Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act - 1976; Indian Stamp Act - 1899 (to the extent falling within the jurisdiction of the Union of India);
• Matters relating to the following attached offices of the Department and other Ministries:
a) Enforcement Directorate (ED)
b) Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB)
c) Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI)
d) Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN)
e) Financial Intelligence Unit - India (FIU-IND)
f) Income Tax Settlement Commission
g) Customs and Central Excise Settlement Commission
h) Income Tax Ombudsman
i) Appellate Tribunal for Forfeited Property
j) Authority for Advance Rulings for Customs and Central Excise
k) Authority for Advance Rulings for Income Tax
l) National Committee for Promotion of Social and Economic Welfare
m) Controller of factories
n) Directorate General of Income Tax Investigation
o) Directorate General of Income Tax Intelligence(Criminal Investigation)
p) Directorate General of Anti-Evasion
q) Directorate General of Economic Enforcement
s) Terrorist Anti Funding Cell(Ministry of Home Affairs)
t) Election Commission as Chief General Observers, Expenditure observers,etc
u) Insurance Ombudsman
v) Chief Vigilance Officers in different Ministries and Public Sector Units
w) Heading various Commissions -post retirement
• They are also deputed to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Election Commission as Chief General Observers, Expenditure observers,etc, apart from heading various cells in the Ministry of Finance,Home Ministry and other ministries in the Government of India.
The general administrative acumen of the service has also got some recognition of late. The former Chief Election Commissioner of India, T. S. Krishnamurthy was the first IRS officer to have become a Secretary to the Government of India. With changing times however, more and more IRS officers are serving in departments and areas that used to exclusively be the forte of IAS officers. This widening of opportunities and exposure has made the IRS more attractive.
Since there is no cadre system in this service you can expect to be posted anywhere in India and even your home state, which becomes a problem for many in the IAS or IPS. The tenures are also more stable with an average of 3 years unlike the other two services where one may not even complete a month and the average tenure is around a year or so.
* Income Tax Act,1961
The designations and time-scales within the Indian Revenue Service are as follows:
| Position / Pay Grade in the Government of India | Level and Rank | Order of Precedence (As per Presidential order) |
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|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Junior Time Scale | Assistant Commissioner / Entry-level (Probationer) | -- |
| 2 | Senior Time Scale | Deputy Commissioner (Equivalent to) Under Secretary to Government of India /Collector of a District | -- |
| 3 | Junior Administrative Grade | Joint Commissioner (Equivalent to) Deputy Secretary to Government of India | -- |
| 4 | Selection Grade | Additional Commissioner (Equivalent to) Director to Government of India | -- |
| 5 | Senior Administrative Grade | Commissioner (Equivalent to) Joint Secretary to Government of India | 26 |
| 6 | Higher Administrative Grade | Chief Commissioner (Equivalent to) Additional Secretary to Government of India | 25 |
| 7 | Apex Scale / HAG+ | Chairman/Member/Ombudsman (Boards & Tribunals) (Equivalent to) Secretary to Government of India | 23 |
| S No | Indian Police Service (State) | Indian Forest Service (State) | Indian Revenue Service (Union) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Assistant Superintendent of Police | Assistant Conservator of Forests | Assistant Commissioner Income Tax |
| 2 | Additional Superintendent of Police/Superintendent of Police | Deputy Conservator of Forests | Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax |
| 3 | Senior Superintendent of Police | Deputy Conservator of Forests | Joint Commissioner of Income Tax |
| 4 | Deputy Inspector General of Police | Conservator of Forests | Additional Commissioner of Income Tax |
| 5 | Inspector General of Police | Chief Conservator of Forests | Commissioner of Income Tax |
| 6 | Additional Director General of Police | Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests | Senior Commissioner of Income tax/Additional Director General of Income Tax |
| 7 | Director General of Police/CRPF,CISF,NSG etc | Principal Chief Conservator of Forests | Director General of Income Tax/Chief Commissioner of Income Tax |
| 8 | Director Intelligence Bureau(4 star) | Director General of Forests | Director General of Income Tax/Chief Commissioner of Income Tax |
| 9 | No equivalent rank | Secretary (Forest) only held by IAS | CBDT Chairman/Board Members/Ombudsman etc |
Apart from the staff welfare schemes of the Government, members of the IRS have an added sense of satisfaction that comes from directly contributing to the development of the country as revenue is the source of all development work of the State. With a strength of approximately 4000 (IT) and 2600 (C&CE) officers, the IRS is responsible for the collection of 86% of the revenue of the Government of India.While the main work of the department is assessment and recovery of direct taxes, the department has specialised branches dealing with investigation of tax evasion, statistics, and so on with the help of Assistant Directors (of the same rank as Assistant Commissioners of Income-tax). The Assistant Commissioners/ Deputy Directors, Communication Chief Commissioners become members of Central Board of Direct Taxes. The head of the department is the Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, who is invariably a member of the Indian Revenue Services (Income-tax).
A civil servant is responsible for the law and order and general administration in the area under his work. Typically the functions of an IRS officer are as follows [1] :
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is remembered as the "Patron Saint" of India's civil servants for establishing modern services. In an unprecedented and unrepeated gesture, on the day after his death more than 1,500 officers of India's civil and police services congregated to mourn at Patel's residence in Delhi and pledged "complete loyalty and unremitting zeal" in India's service.[2]
Presently only 3% of Indian population comes in the tax bracket. Similarly the Service Tax has only started picking up of late due to very few services in the tax net. With the economy booming, the IRS is bound to play an increasingly important role in the affairs of the state. As the country liberalizes further, the economic power will shift into private hands with public-private participation being the keyword. Hence the service will be at the interaction point between the private industry and the Government. According to a recent report in The Economic Times, the IRS is likely to witness an increasing demand for its officers in the private sector considering their wide range of experience in manning various fiscal and monetary policy centers as well as various field formations.
As compared to the other premier services of the Government of India, IRS has the advantages of lesser political interference, stability of tenure and opportunities to stay in large urban centers,deputations in different ministries for the major part of the career,luxury vehicles,prestige and government accommodation while limited direct public interaction are cited as the main comparative disadvantage.
Uniform in Central Excise Department is similar to the Khaki uniform of Police officials. It is dissimilar in respect of the shoulder badges, cap badge and logo or emblem so as to enable identification of the person as belonging to the Police or to Central Excise/Narcotics. The Customs officers had white uniforms similar to those of naval officers but with differences in shoulder badges, cap badges, belt badges etc. to differentiate a customs officer from a naval officer.
Currently in Central Excise, Customs & Narcotics Department the uniforms are prescribed for Deputy Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners, Superintendents/Appraising Officers, Inspectors/Preventive Officers, Sub-Inspectors, Head Constables, Sepoys & Drivers. There is no uniform for the senior officers viz. Chief Commissioner/Director General, Commissioner/ADG, Additional Commissioner & Joint Commissioner. Also, there is no uniform for ministerial staff (lower division clerks, upper division clerks, stenographers, assistants, Dos, OS, AO, CAO).There is no uniform for officials of the income tax department.
"The special agents and agents(ITO and Inspector rank) are able to carry firearms when they are posted in the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) in the I-T department .The Finance Ministry has notified bringing under one umbrella the intelligence and criminal investigation units of the Income Tax department to effectively deal with terror financing cases and transactions that pose threat to national security.The department will now recruit special agents and agents (criminal investigation) under the new wing, half of whom would be recruited or brought on deputation from premier investigative agencies and police organisations of the country. The special agents who will form part of the premier DCI would be able to carry firearms under the rules prescribed by their parent organisation and would be able to tackle any intimidation in course of their new duty of checking and gathering intelligence on tax evasion. With the process of economic liberalisation having gathered momentum there have been significant changes in the nature of tax evasion. While there has been reduction in conventional smuggling due to liberalisation of import regime and reduction in rates of duty, there is no respite in commercial frauds by way of misdeclaration/undervaluation of imported goods and misuse of export promotion schemes. Further, we now face an increased threat of smuggling of narcotic drugs, foreign currency, arms and explosives etc. due to growing nexus between smugglers and anti-national elements. Problems such as international terrorism, narco-terrorism, money laundering, IPR violations, cyber crimes, import of hazardous substances etc. will occupy centre stage in the future as the emerging global threats. There are also issues like dumping of goods which cause more concern to developing economies like India and will, therefore, engage attention of the policymakers and enforcement agencies alike.
Economic crimes in India, like in other countries, are linked to several other offences, or even organised crimes, having bearing on national security. A greater degree of sophistication is being noticed in the activities of tax evasion and commercial frauds and there is a growing recognition in the world that the economic offences are, many times, part of other serious crimes posing serious threat to the security of the nation.
The DCI will be headed by the Director General of Intelligence (Income Tax) and was notified in May this year to tackle the menace of black money with cross-border ramifications.
The revamp is aimed at launching 'un-intrusive' investigations against "persons and transactions suspected to be involved in criminal activities having cross-border, inter-state or international ramifications, that pose a threat to national security and are punishable under the direct tax laws."The commissioners of the intelligence directorate of I-T who are posted in cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Lucknow will also take up criminal investigation work under the DCI.
Criminal investigation relies heavily on accurate and specific actionable intelligence and information of such activities and hence such an arrangement has been made.Separate manpower for the criminal investigation unit will be raised in the next few years when the department gets additional sanction.The intelligence wing of the I-T department has the Central Information Branch (CIB) under it, which is a repository of classified and exhaustive data on taxpayers' financial transactions. The Criminal Investigation strategic plan is composed of three interdependent programs: Legal Source Tax Crimes; Illegal Source Financial Crimes; and Narcotics Related Financial Crimes. These three programs are mutually supportive, and encourage utilization of all statutes within CI’s jurisdiction and enforcement techniques to combat tax, money laundering and currency crime violations. Criminal Investigation must investigate and assist in the prosecution of those significant financial investigations that will generate the maximum deterrent effect, enhance voluntary compliance, and promote public confidence in the tax system.
Transparency International, a global watchdog body, ranked India at a low 73 out of the 102 countries in its Corruption Perception Index, later in the 2008 survey, it ranked 85th in a 128 country list. The World Economic Forum on the other hand, ranked India 44 among 49 countries surveyed.[3] A 2009 survey of the leading economies of Asia, revealed Indian bureaucracy to be not just least efficient out of Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines and Indonesia; further it was also found that working with the India's civil servants was a "slow and painful" process.[4] This ranking, done by 1,274 expatriates working in 12 North and South Asian nations, ranked Asian bureaucracies in the following order: Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines, Indonesia and India. Read more in : The Times of India Survey - Indian bureaucracy ranked worst in Asia
By the 1990s, the economic liberalization of the Indian economy and the end of the license raj, gradually opened up the economic skies and the end to the regulatory regime which flourished during previous era, loosened its hold over the resources. Though this brought to surface the practices of kickbacks, both during disinvestment and offering government contracts, and while setting up of industries by foreign businesses were soon employing same corrupt practices used by Indian businesses for decades.[5]
Over the years, several reasons have been cited by various scholars regarding the sustained existence of corrupt practices within the Indian bureaucratic system,[6] also known as babudom colloquially, leading among them is its nexus with political corruption,[7] lack of accountability and low regulatory controls. Others have suggested a rigid bureaucracy with a exclusivist process of decision making in a overly-centralized government as the reason its pervasiveness despite the passing years. In fact surveys have found it to be most resistant to transformation in its ways of functioning, even after repeated efforts by successive governments.[8] Some experts believe that a fall out of the existing corruption and red tapism can be detrimental to the Indian economy in the long run, as foreign investors in a rapidly global, economies of the world still view entering into India as a challenge and plagued as it remains both with political and bureaucratic corruption as well systematic inefficiency which leads to long turn around period as project delays cause cost escalations in volatile market economies.[9] Also in the recent years, several corrupt economies of Asia have faced setbacks, after the wave of economic upturn faded, this makes the urgency of corrective measures more than evident, they make it an imperative.[10][11]
The IRS officials top the Central Bureau of Investigation’s list of most corrupt bureaucrats. In the one year period from May 2009 to May 2010, the CBI had sought sanction for prosecution of 102 IRS officials posted in different parts of the country in connection with corruption cases.[12] In one case, a 1992 batch IRS (IT) officer was arrested for accepting a bribe of Rs 2 Crore in Mumbai.[13] Recently, in another case, some IRS officials were found to help certain companies evade payment of Service tax and related penalties of the order of Rs 1 Crore.[14]