Income-tax (I-T) officials have been working from home during the nationwide lockdown up to April 14 under elaborate guidelines that include sending daily report to their supervisors about their works, a finance ministry official said requesting anonymity.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has asked officials to act as the facilitators to the taxpayers and to help them arrange their I-T related solutions through phone calls or other online methods, he said.
“The directives of CBDT must be seen in the same spirit where the field officers and staff of I-T department while working from home have been asked to get in touch with taxpayers as facilitators to assist them perform their tax related obligations, if they wish to do so. This in no way shall be misinterpreted as asking I-T officers to adopt coercion for tax collection,” he said.
During the lockdown, the government’s directive to government servants is to work from home. “The officers are already working from home and the daily report is merely a compilation of work done by various officers and staff for monitoring purposes which is a regular administrative measure,” he said.
In order to facilitate them the I-T department has provided mobile phones, laptops, data cards and broadband connections to officials so that they can work from home.
