State creates Directorate of Revenue Intelligence & Enforcement to tackle tax evasion woes
Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government has created a new Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Enforcement (DRI&E) for a comprehensive approach to investigation and enforcement of tax laws. The move is aimed at tackling the menace of tax evasion and leakage of state revenue in a more effective and efficient manner.
The state Finance department has already brought out a gazette notification, stating that the DRI&E will investigate cases of tax evasion and undertake enforcement for the Acts administered mainly by the Directorate of Commercial Taxes, Directorate of Excise, Directorate of Registration and Stamp Revenue and Directorate of State Lotteries.
The DRI&E will undertake investigation cases of its own and also of cases referred to it by the Revenue Directorates or by the state government. It will also act as the nodal agency in case of prosecution for offences under the relevant tax laws and conduct enquiry for the purpose of vigilance over government employees of the Revenue Directorates for allegations of malpractices involving tax evasion.
It will analyse the tax evasion patterns and suggest the state government appropriate remedial legal and procedural measures including those for systematic improvements in the IT system.
The DRI&E will be headed by a director, an officer of IAS cadre and the nod has already been received for three special directors in the rank of special commissioner of revenue and 17 additional directors. There will be four joint directors, one chief vigilance officer, two vigilance officers, five investigating officers and another 27 employees in various categories like law officer, software support personnel, clerk, data entry operator, etc.
The investigation teams and field officers in DRI&E tasked to deal with tax evasion will be manned mainly by the West Bengal Revenue Service officers and other officials from the other Revenue Directorates.
As per the notification of the state Finance department, the DRI&E will also have a cyber forensic lab and a law cell.
"The matter of reconstructing the indirect tax administration of the state to counter revenue leakage and tax evasion through intensive and broad based investigation and enforcement with multi-faceted approach has been under our active consideration for quite some time. We hope that the DRI&E will be an important step in that direction," a senior official of the state Finance department said.
The state Cabinet on February 1 had approved the setting up of DRI&E. A senior Nabanna official said that the DRI&E will have similar functions as the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
