RTI ACT AND INCOME TAX REFUNDS

RIGHT TO INFORMATION AND INCOME TAX REFUNDS
If in the income-tax administration there is one area
which has remained perennially incurable, it is Incometax
Refunds.
In a Press Release dated 19th April, 2007, Central Board of
Direct Taxes stated: “It has been reported in some
sections of the media that a large number of taxpayers
are awaiting refunds from the income-tax department for
up to three years. These reports are factually incorrect
and based on incomplete appraisal of facts”.
As per the statement made by Minister of State for
Finance there have been instructions to issue refunds
within four months from the date of receipt of return and
dispatched within 30 days from the date of signing the
refund order.
I am sure most readers of this article would doubt the
correctness of above Press Release and the Statement.
Many readers may not have received income-tax refunds
for one or more earlier years inspite of many reminders,
personal visits, and grievance-cell applications. There
was no hope. It was a helpless and hopeless situation.
Right to information Act
• The Right to Information Act came into effective
being from 12.10.2005. Now nearly two years are
getting over.
• The Act is being used by many citizens to obtain
information, which earlier was not available, from
various Government Departments and other
organisations like PSUs, Indian Railways, Reserve
bank of India and so on.
• Information can be accessed by making an
application under the RTI Act. It is very simple, leasttime
consuming, most inexpensive.
• Few organisations (22 in all) like CBI, RAW are
basically exempted.
• Further, certain informations are exempted for all
organisations covered under the RTI Act referred to
as “Public Authority”. Such exempt items include
information on commercial confidence, trade secrets
or intellectual properly, information which would
impede the process of investigation or apprehension
or prosecution of offenders, information which
relates to personal information the disclosure of
which has no relationship to any public activity or
interest or which would cause unwarranted invasion
of the privacy of the individual etc.
Example of application under RTI for refund
Suppose your income-tax refunds for A.Y. 2002-03 of Rs.
1,057 and for A.Y. 2004-05 of Rs.7,230 are not received
inspite of many reminders. You make the application in
Annexure A OF RTI ACT . You take it to one of the designated post
offices, handling RTI applications. There are
designated post offices, list available on
www.bcasonline.org. For ALL cities, visit
http://www.indiapost.gov.in/rtimanual16a.html to get
details of designated post offices.
Submitting application under RTI
• Filing fee for RTI application to the Central
Government authority is Rs. 10. Same can be
paid at post-office in the form of Postal Order for
Rs.10.
• To make the system operate easier, the decision was
taken by the Prime Minister of India that the
Department of Posts should provide its services to all
the Central Government Departments as a collection
point for information under the RTI Act by
designating its Central Assistant Public Information
Officers (CAPIOs) as CAPIOs for the entire Central
Government.
• The postal department now not only receives cash of
Rs. 10 on behalf of Public Authorities of all Central
Government Departments or / and issues postal
order for it, but also takes the responsibility of
delivering the RTI application free of charge to the
concerned CPIO anywhere in India. We need to
appreciate the service of postal department.
• Post office normally dispatches the RTI application to
the concerned Central Government Department on
the same day.
• The service of Post offices for delivery is at the option
of the applicant. If you desire to deliver application
to the concerned department yourself personally or
yourself posting it by registered post A.D. to get the
acknowledgement yourself you may do so.
Public information Officer
• RTI application is to be addressed to Public
Information Officer (PIO).
• Each establishment (i.e. Public Authority) covered
under the RTI Act has to appoint one or more PIO, in
fact one for each of the department's different offices.
• Until 09.08.2007, all Commissioners of Income-tax
were PIOs. Ministry of Finance, Department of
Revenue, Directorate of Income-tax vide
communication dated 09.08.2007 have modified RTI
mechanism in respect of PIOs / Appellate Authorities
and other related RTI issues. Now your assessing
officer himself is the PIO for you.