Yesterday, I received a call from one of my clients, alleging me INEFFICIENT !!

I am a Chartered Accountant, having a decent clientele ! (Those include some International NGOs). All my clients are satisfied with my service...... All went well till the Income Tax Department issued a circular (No. 5/2007).

Going by the spirit of the circular and the promise it made to accord priority to returns that are filed electronically, I resorted to file all my clients' annual tax returns electronically.

After all, I never suspected the promise made by the Government of India ! I made a mistake by not taking the cue from the Local Income Tax office when they refused to accept and acknowledge the ITR-V, and filed them after teaching the Local Assistant Commissioner that their department has made a leap by introducing such facility and that they have a portal and their portal accepts e-returns and provides a verification form and that ............!!!! (Note: AC insisted on a copy of circular 5/2007)

After they started to accept ITR-V, I thought all went well !!!

Now I have a new problem, REFUND !!

I innocently transferred the message by the above circular and made my clients believe that their returns will be process in priority to manually filed returns. Now I am in Problem !

All those who filed their returns manually have received their refunds. The pity is I am not even able to find out my clients' refund Status.

I called the superbly acronymed ASK to verify the refund status, they just said, ASK your AO ! When I ASKed AO, he said 'you did not file your returns here, how do you expect us to respond to you ? He was perfectly correct, wasn't he?

To an LIC Agent, who is eagerly waiting for his refunds, my explanations of circulars, government's promise of priority and 'you will be paid interest by the department' and all other explanations fell on his deaf ears. Is he not right to expect his refund when all his colleagues who filed their returns manually received theirs? He is least bothered about how his return is filed.

So where is the fault ? Is it proper to blame the Government which is run by the most efficient economists, politicians, administration etc., etc?

When I was searching for the one to be blamed, my client came to my rescue and revealed to me that I WAS INEFFICIENT !!

Finally I realised that, believing the government (knowing well who runs it !) may sometimes make you inefficient !


A. Joseph Arputharaj
Chartered Accountant
Panruti, Cuddalore District
Mobile: 9952744227

checked

Please take letter of engagement for individual cases specifying clearly our duties as a chartered accountant and we cant take responsibility of getting refund,  as 2006 refunds are pending in many cases,

dear friend

In my 11 years of practice I have never read(or overheard) such clear cut ack of we CAs being inefficient .In fact we people really are and let me tell you the real reason .

we have no strong team be it our controlling bodies or our associations which always beleive that success means getting well dressed,cramming conferences imposing restrictions and proclaiming ourselves as highly dignified individual.Actually this concept is good in US or similar domains where 90% assessee is literate but in our country 90% of traditional assessee is only basic literate and doesn't understands tax laws .In these domains they consider us CAs as part and parcel of agents(call them dalal in hindi) who acts as conduit to the income tax department and assessee.

Secondly the problem is with our tax laws which are not in tandem with practical thing the blunt of which is faced by you and we CAs are a burden over assessee ie they hire us because the statute says so we do not add value to their business.Have you conducted any tax audit of private clients in which you have given qualified report.You cannot dare to give.

The client says if a case is selected for scrutiny and even if it is tax audited get him cleared without any tax addition and bribe then what is the use of bearing such expense as fees of CA etc let alone deal with revenue authorities who are our mai baap as also of CAs(who generally share 25 to 30% of bribe )

The misery of our associations is that when 3 of our fellow CAs are being thrashed by excise officials we do nothing and at the end of day the matter is setteled by submitting a pardon application by the CAs to the officer concerned.

Just try to do this thing with a doctor or a lawyer

To this day service tax could not be imposed upon doctors or lawyers who are equally as professional and at times earning more than us.

We could not represent our client in courts but a lawyer can.Can we represent our client in courts in civil case?

That is why we are inefficient

if you feel agreed to my views and feel that something need to be done kindly mail me at carahulsaxena_2000 @ yahoo.com