Indian tax administration machinary is probably the most corrupt in the world. Such corruption leads to harassment of the tax payers and leakage of revenue. To curb this menace certain functions needs to be identified which can be privatised.
It has been experienced in the Income Tax that privatisation of PAN application procedure has led to lesser harassment to the assessee, which has resulted into greater tax compliance. The endeavour should be to locate more and more area which can be privatised.
I suggest that routine procedure like- application of registration and issuance of registration certificate and receipt of periodical return and othet communications received from the assessee can easily be privatised. It will reduce harassemnt of honest tax payers and improve the voluntary compliance of tax.
I do fully agree with the proposition that ,tax administration shold be handled through private machinery.
I do agree with Mr Rajesh that overhaul is required in the taxation machinery. But is privatisation is only solution. Just ask somebody who has been harassed by private banks, telecom operators or any other such service provider.
There are certain non core functions which are neither sensitive nor legal which can easily be handled by non government operators on contract basis. Success of PAN management is one example (though it comes with a fee which was not the case when IT Department was handeling the applications). These non core functions lead to much of the harassment and as I understand Government has already taken steps in this direction by online filing, refund banker schemes etc.