IRS Association, largely comprising officers from the I-T dept, has written to the CBDT that they be referred to as IRS and not as IRS(I-T).
New Delhi: A battle for supremacy is brewing within the Indian Revenue Service — a central government service — with one branch claiming to be the “real” IRS.
The IRS has two branches — IRS (income tax) and IRS (customs and indirect taxes) — which are, in turn, controlled by two statutory bodies, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), respectively.
Claiming to be “real” IRS, the IRS Association — which largely comprises officers from the I-T department — has written four separate letters to the Ministry of Finance, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and CBDT, requesting them to ensure that they be referred to as the IRS and not as “IRS(I-T)” since doing so dilutes the brand name of the service.
“We are a much bigger service with a much bigger clientele…writing ‘I-T’ in front of our service only dilutes the weight of the service. IRS is a known brand name associated with income tax,” senior IRS officer Jayant Misra told ThePrint.
Citing an incident wherein three IRS officials in the customs department have been transferred out of Mumbai after DRI unearthed a Rs 3,000-crore diamond import scam, Misra said such instances are giving a bad name to the service.
In the letters dated 14 May, 2018, the IRS Association wrote, “It is noticed that in many government communications, the name of the service is wrongly mentioned as Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax), IRS (I-T), or Indian Income Tax Service etc. This is very often done to distinguish this service from another service under the ministry of finance i.e. Indian Revenue Service (customs & central excise), which was earlier known as Indian Customs & Central Excise Service.
Arguing that such a distinction causes confusion and also affects the brand name of the IRS, the letter said, “Such efforts for distinguishing the IRS from the IRS (C&CE) or other services having similar names such as IRSE, IRAS, etc., results in incorrect nomenclature and distortion in the name of the service.”
Asking the CBDT to issue “a clarification” in this regard, the association said, “Indian Revenue Service, and its abbreviation IRS, are a known brand recognised in the country and abroad. It is requested that directions may kindly be issued that the correct name of the service be used in all official communications without distorting the name of the service.”
However, even though the IRS Association has taken up this matter with relevant authorities, its official Twitter handle continues to be called “IRS (Customs & I-T) Association”.
This may be because the Association cannot remove I-T from its name until the government “issues a clarification”, an IRS officer said.
Read in Hindi: भारतीय राजस्व सेवा के अधिकारियों ने कहा हम है असली आईआरएस, ना कहें आईआरएस(आई – टी)